Buddhism: The Light of Asia

I have just started reading Buddhism: The Light of Asia, by Kenneth K. S. Ch'en. This book was published originally in 1968, and is fairly thin at 301 pages.

The first chapter, "The Background", gives a brief history of events and culture in India prior to the time of the Gautama Siddhartha (a.k.a the Buddha), who lived around 500 B.C.