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Bhutan. History of Bhutan, Bhutanese refugees, Religion in Bhutan, Culture of Bhutan, Politics of Bhutan, Military of Bhutan, Foreign relations of Bhutan, Geography of Bhutan, Districts of Bhutan, Gewogs of Bhutan, Demographics of Bhutan, Outline of Bhutan ... Read more

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In Bhutan, progress is measured in terms of "Gross National Happiness" and Thimphu, the capital city, has no traffic lights. This mesmerizing book captures the beauties of this remote kingdom, the only independent country to support Buddhism as the official state religion. Readers are transported to ancient fortresses and temples, colorful festivals, and religious ceremonies, as well as to isolated communities along the roof of the world. Featuring photographs taken over the course of three years, the book guides readers through areas normally off-limits to Western visitors, and encompasses a wide range of landscape, portrait, and editorial photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Wonderful photos introduce one to Bhutan's culture
The photos in this book are a great introduction to the magnificent country of Bhutan. Buddhist monasteries perched on hillsides beneath towering Himalayan mountains, dancing monks, local art and architecture, and the wonderful Bhutanese people going about their daily lives are all depicted. I recommend it.

Bhutan - Land of the Gross National Happiness
This beautifully photographed, written and published book was more than I had expected.It really shows this land at it's best.Now, I cannot wait to see it for myself.

Unique and exquisite portrayal of Bhutan's peoples and regions
As a frequent traveller to Bhutan, mesmerized from the first step into the country by the beauty of the landscape and its people, and fascinated by the rural life-style there, this unique photographic portrayal of the country by region and cultural group is a special treasure in my collection.For anyone with even a passing curiosity about this land that is undergoing a phenomenal cultural revolution, this book is a necessity.For the would-be travelers, it will awaken your senses before you arrive, and for the vicarious adventurers who will see Bhutan only from the comfort of their armchair, there has never been a more beautiful way to peek into the remote corners of Bhutan that are rarely viewed by even the local people and never by foreigners. Kadinchey la, John Berthold! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Charming memoir/travel diary
This book was written by one of the previous Queens of Bhutan. She and her three sisters married the previous king who recently abdicated in favor of his oldest son who has now become King.

The book is a breezy and rather charming read. It begins as a memoir of the author who talks about her childhood in a small village and her trip to an Indian boarding school. And continues with a retracing of the changes that occurred in her life and that of her country. She then spends the second half or so of the book recounting her many walking/trekking tours across the country including to some of its remotest parts meeting the local people along the way.

This is certainly not a Bhutan travel guide. It is more of a discussion of the modernization of a very isolated country and the culture of its people. I suppose you might be able to hike to many of the remotest places she talks about but they would take a great deal of logistical planning. Of course other places mentioned in the book are very much on the normal tourist itinerary. She, of course, had the advantage of being the Queen. But that is not to say that she was carried around on a litter. She certainly did a lot of hard walking and hiking and I think her aim and goals were admirable. But as a relatively well-off person, even as a child, I think she probably had a number of advantages over not just foreigners visiting Bhutan but also certainly over the average villager. Her family traces its lineage to one of the most important figures in Bhutanese history.

Ultimately I enjoyed this book very much. I will be spending a few weeks in Bhutan later this year so I have been reading about the country.

Highly Reccomended
This is a very fun and illuminating book. It has a very warm and engaging style and the perspective on this charming little country it offers is impossible to find elsewhere. I am a big Bhutanophile and wrote my undergraduate dissertation on it, but I still learned something new and interesting on every page. ... Read more

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A guide to the ornithology of Bhutan, a country of great physical beauty and, unusually, one with much of its primary forest intact. It covers all 555 species regularly recorded in the country and includes a list of vagrants. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Review of Birds of Bhutan
I spent 17 days recently birding Bhutan with a group and using this book for pre-trip study and identification assistance in the field.The illustrations were mostly accurate (with a few glaring exceptions) and the book was small and easy to carry in the field.Actually, I thought it was too small.I would have preferred illustrations of the birds that were 1/3 larger, knowing that the trade-off for that would have been a 1/3 larger and heavier book to haul around.Additionally, when I looked up birds in the index, plate numbers only (not page numbers) were given.For some reason the book's designers put the plate numbers in impossibly small font in the inner portion of the page near the spine where they were not visible to use in finding the page quickly.Apparently they gave no thought to the needs of the birder using this book in the field.Once I realized this during my pre-trip study at home, I marked the plate numbers in large print on a portion of the page where they were quickly visible as I searched for the correct page.Also, I am accustomed to using the range maps that most field guides include.This book indicated species distribution by listing the first letter of the dzongkhags (districts) where it had been found.This was not at all helpful to me because I was not familiar enough with the names of the districts and their accompanying abbreviations to use this.I did, however, know where I was in the country and could have utilized range maps effectively had they been included.

Solid guide for all Bhutan species; weak text
Basics: 2004, softcover, 192 pages, 70 color plates of 600 species, no range maps

Like several other books by these authors, this book is a select, reduced version of their original work "A Guide to the Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives" of 1999.This Bhutan book is a true field guide sized option that illustrates all 600 species found in the country.

The plates illustrate the birds quite well and are usually shown with multiple plumages when significant differences exist between genders, age, or subspecies.These illustrations are good enough to identify most species.Each plate contains 3-14 species, made up of 8-25 illustrations.The plates for the raptors are somewhat crammed with many smaller illustrations, but they are still decent enough to work for identification.

Like the Southern, Northern, and Nepal counterparts to this book, the text is the weaker element.Each bird receives 3-15 lines describing it.This text may not always be sufficient to differentiate between many of the more similar birds.Sometimes a line or two is offered about the habitat or distribution.The raptors receive the most coverage while the passerines receive the least (i.e., 3-5 lines).There is only the sparsest of information given for vocalizations.Many of the birds have none.There are also no range maps.

Unfortunately, missing from this book are the several appendix-tables found in the three other sister books.Those tables helped to supplement the relatively thin text on identification.They provided a comparison list of the more difficult bird groups such as nightjars, warblers, rosefinches, and the Yellow and the White Wagtail.

For Bhutan, this book is probably your second best option, aside from the author's combined Birds of India that use the same plates.A superior, but more expensive book is the "Birds of South Asia" by Rasmussen.

If you're looking at other titles by these authors, Inskipp/Grimmett, keep in mind this Bhutan guide comes from the combined (but still condensed) Birds of India, which includes range maps.Basically, if you own Birds of India, you already own everything in this book.And, these two books all come from the aforementioned larger work that has everything along with extensive, in-depth text.

I've listed several related books below...
1) Birds in Bhutan: Status and Distribution by Spierenburg
2) The birds of Bhutan by Ali/Biswas/Ripley
3) Birds of Nepal, with Reference to Kashmir and Sikkim by Fleming
4) Photographic Guide to Birds of the Himalayas by Grewal/Pfister
5) Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives by Grimmett/Inskipp
6) Birds of Nepal by Grimmett/Inskipp
7) A Guide to the Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives by Grimmett/Inskipp
8) A Photographic Guide to the Birds of India (Helm Field Guides) by Grewal/Harvey/Pfister
9) Tibet and its birds by Vaurie

Best field guide for bird watching I have...
Most guidebooks for birders are very general in their descriptions of birds. "Birds of Bhutan" tells you when and where in the country you can view them. Includes endangered, endemic and vagrant species.Beautifully detailed showing all local varieties, this book is Written veryspecifically about Bhutan Birds but, still gives information about where inAsia these birds range. This Book is a must have! ... Read more

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An introduction to a tiny, beautiful Himalayan kingdom which has been little influenced by the modern world. ... Read more

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This illustrated volume presents a wide variety of themes from the historical and modern periods of Bhutan, illustrating change and adaptation to new realities. ... Read more

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Memoirs portraying life in Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan in the 1930s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Lost Kingdoms
I'm researching a trip to Bhutan this fall, and have found that memoirs like this are few and far between. This book describes a world that is far gone--especially Tibet, where all vestiges of the Buddhist culture have been stamped out by the Chinese, except for a few carefully preserved sites for tourists. The book is fascinating for its picture of a culture that was totally accessible to a rather low level British foreign service officer--the Dalai Lama, the Bhutanese Royal Family welcome these well-meaning British into their midst with great ceremony and real friendship. The book itself suffers from a lack of immediacy, which I attribute to the fact that it was written many years later and undoubtedly based almost solely on diaries. I wish there were descriptions of the journeys themselves--the author speaks of crossing 17,000 foot passes as if they were a walk in the park---didn't the pack animals stumble, wasn't she ever out of breath? I would love to have read a description of a small village casually passed--were the children healthy? the people hostile or curious? Having said that, the book presents an interesting picture of a relatively benevolent British Empire reaching out to an independent Tibet--and Bhutan--untouched by the West.

Worlds Apart
Under what circumstances should a bride on honeymoon learn to shoot a rifle? The answer? If she was marrying a Political Officer in 1933. In her book " Memoirs of a Political Officer's Wife in Tibet, Sikkim and and Bhutan" Margaret Williamson describes her two years spent travelling with her husband who was working on behalf of the British Government in this remote part of the world.

To say she descibes a world that is lost to us is an understatement. She describes Tibet when it was ruled over by the previous Dalai Lama who died in 1935. Long before the Chinese invaded. She talks of Sikkim a tiny state that was invaded by India as recently as the 1970s. It is only in Bhutan where life is still recognisable from the decsriptions in this book.

Her description of a long lost life style in this mostly barren part of the world together with her observations of colours, fabrics and the minutiae of life provides a colourful view of life at a political level in these countries. Her marraige lasted two short years, her husband was buried in Tibet where his grave was eventually washed away by floods. She remains convinced to the end that " if I were to be offered the chance of lilving that all too brief period over again, I would do so without a moment's hesitation - even if I knew at the same time what the final outcome would be"

A fascinating view of life in the Himalayas in the 1930s where women travellers were the exception. And a way of life that is apart from anything we shall ever experience . ... Read more

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Comprehensive political history and ethnic composition of Bhutan. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from World Education Encyclopedia, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1060 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.This country-by-country survey of educational systems provides detailed essays on the histories, legal foundations, and primary and secondary educational systems of 233 countries. This edition provides up-to-date coverage of reorganized educational systems and technological advances. ... Read more

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Completely updated and revised for this new edition, our unique electronic book on two CD-ROMs has an amazing collection of the finest federal documents and resources about Bhutan, providing encyclopedic coverage of all aspects of the country. This disc set provides a truly fantastic reference source, with over one hundred thousand pages reproduced in Adobe Acrobat format! There is complete coverage of newsworthy material about Bhutan, including U.S. relations, PACOM, Asia-Pacific Economic update, Human Rights, Himalayas, Black-Necked Cranes, energy, food aid, agriculture, and more.This incredible and comprehensive series on the countries of the world contains material from the State Department, Department of Defense, White House, and cabinet agencies including Agriculture, Energy, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.There is complete information about geography, people, government, the economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.In addition to the nation-specific material, as a bonus we have included reports about every country on the globe, with 271 nations, dependent areas, and other entities identified by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA World Factbook is considered an invaluable world encyclopedia reference book.This incredible two CD-ROM set is packed with over 100,000 pages reproduced using Adobe Acrobat PDF software - allowing direct viewing on Windows and Macintosh systems. The Acrobat cataloging technology adds enormous value and uncommon functionality to this impressive collection of government documents and material. ... Read more

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Bhutanese textiles are among the last of the major arts of Asia to gain recognition in the West, and this is the first book to present this outstanding art form in its cultural and historical context. Bhutan's textiles, especially the intricate brocades and complex supplementary-warp patterns, are unmatched anywhere in the world. This art, with a steadily growing and devoted following in the West and Japan, has become Bhutan's most powerful emblem abroad.

This volume, first published in 1994 (now reprinted in 2008) in conjunction with a special exhibition organized by the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, covers all aspects of Bhutan's textiles and weaving heritage, from the central role of women - more than 80 percent of Bhutanese women contribute to their household's income by weaving - to fibers, dyes, and looms, to the functioning of beautiful cloth as an item of trade and an indicator of historical change and social identity. This copiously illustrated book reveals the richness, originality, and striking beauty of Bhutanese textiles. Examples come from the Peabody Essex Museum, which holds the largest such collection of any North American museum, and public and private collections in Bhutan, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The illustrations are supplemented by field photographs and rare archival images. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Comprehensive and Beautiful Resource
This book catalogued the show at Salem's Peabody Essex Museum in 1994.It provides a very comprehensive study of textiles - a highly revered commodity - in Bhutan. Illustrations of every textile type, from wearables and costumes to rugs to thangkas, are of high quality.Excellent resource for weavers, dyers, and fiber artists in general, as well as theater. ... Read more