Product Description
At different times in its history Tibet has been renowned for pacifism and martial prowess, enlightenment and cruelty. The Dalai Lama may be the only religious leader who can inspire the devotion of agnostics. Patrick French has been fascinated by Tibet since he was a teenager. He has read its history, agitated for its freedom, and risked arrest to travel through its remote interior. His love and knowledge inform every page of this learned, literate, and impassioned book.

Talking with nomads and Buddhist nuns, exiles and collaborators, French portrays a nation demoralized by a half-century of Chinese occupation and forced to depend on the patronage of Western dilettantes. He demolishes many of the myths accruing to Tibet–including those centering around the radiant figure of the Dalai Lama. Combining the best of history, travel writing, and memoir, Tibet, Tibet is a work of extraordinary power and insight. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

interesting and honest
This was a gift for my husband and he truly enjoyed it, commenting it was a thorough and fascinating view and perspective of Tibet that went beyond other types of books like this. Thought provoking.

Exceptional! A Must Read!
I bought this book at the Rubin Museum of Art after enjoying an exhibition on Tibetan Art there. Boy! It blew me away! I love this book! The author writes beautifully...very direct, from the heart and extremely fact-based and balanced. I usually only read fiction but this book is better in that it is a haunting story that is actually true..ficion can't get better than that. I used to be so ignorant about Tibet...now I really feel the pain of the Tibetan people. Well done, Patrick French..this is a wonderful contribution to Tibet and literature. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
The idea of a hidden refuge, a paradise far from the stresses of modern life, has universal appeal. In 1932 the writer James Hilton coined the word 'Shangri-La' to describe such a place, when he gave that name to a hidden valley in the Himalayas in his novel LOST HORIZON. In THE SEARCH FOR SHANGRI-LA acclaimed traveller and writer Charles Allen explores the myth behind the story. He tracks down the sources that Hilton drew upon in writing his popular romance, and then sets out to discover what lies behind the legend that inspired him. In the course of a lively and amusing account of his four journeys into Tibet, Allen also gives us a controversial new reading of the country's early history, shattering our notions of Tibet as a Buddhist paradise and restoring the mysterious pre-Buddhist religion of Bon to its rightful place in Tibetan culture. He also locates the lost kingdom of Shang-shung and, in doing so, the original Shangri-La itself: in an astounding gorge beyond the Himalayas, full of extraordinary ruins. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Somehow it does not jell really!
Though the author brings about some important facts like the connection between the Bon religion and Parsis somehow the book does not really jell. It could be because the author does not speak of his own experiences - one gets a teeny weenie feeling that he is writing under some duress or pressure. May be asked by Chinese Govt. not to mention the unmentionables or that the book has been edited, rather severely, by the publishers. Something is wrong somewhere! Only those who're interested in the Bon religion can refer this book! Vacuous! Ineffective! Though the subject matter is really very good.

The quest of Sham Shung
Il titolo è fuorviante. Il libro di Allen è la ricerca letteraria e filologica del mitico regno di Sham Shung, probabilmente posizionato nell'area del regno di Guge, fra il Ladakh ed il monte Kailash (cui Allen aveva dedicato un libro nel 1982: A mountain in Tibet). Ho compiuto un viaggio al Kailash nel 1997. Con sorpresa ho trovato che l'autore aveva effettuato lo stsso percorso pochi mesi dopo. La stessa agenzia (TIST), lo stesso albergo (Himalaya Hotel a Lhasa, gli stessi episodi (come la morte di un pellegrino indiano per mancanza di acclimatazione). Ma anche la piccola personale soddisfazione di vedere che il gruppo da me organizzato era riuscito a raggiungere i luoghi (Toling e Tsaparang) per cui Allen aveva invano chiesto il permesso.

A more balanced and broader view
of Tibetan history than one often finds in Buddhist-authored books on the subject. The author combined known Near Eastern/Asian ancient and medieval history with personal observations of the land and its archaeology to arrive at some very interesting conclusions about (1) the pre-Buddhist religious history and cultures of Tibet, and (2) the development of Buddhism in this milieu. The frequent transitions in writing style, from travelogue to historical discourse and back, were sometimes awkward. But if you like books on comparative religion, anthropology, mythology, religious history, or ancient history, and are interested in Tibet, you'll have fun with this one!Overall rating: 4 stars

Interesting, but it doesn't quite work.
The author, a writer and oral historian with long experience in the Indian subcontinent, here describes his re-examination of the complex history of Buddhism in Tibet and India. He intersperses colorful chapters about traveling in Tibet among drier chapters on religious history. The mix does not quite work. While Allen's travel writing generally holds the reader's attention, only people with a serious interest in Asian religions would stay with the scholarly presentations all the way through. Even though I lived in South Asia for four years, I found the religious history heavy going. While the color photographs bunched in the center of the book are of good quality, I wished that they had covered more of the sites described by the author. Overall rating: three stars. ... Read more

Product Description
This fascinating study of two British missions to Tibet in 1774 and 1904 provides a unique perspective on the relationship between the Enlightenment and European colonialism.Gordon Stewart compares and contrasts the Enlightenment era mission led by George Bogle and the Edwardian mission of Francis Younghusband as they crossed the Himalayas into Tibet. Through the British agents' diaries, reports, and letters and by exploring their relationships with Indians, Bhutanese and Tibetans, Stewart is able to trace the shifting ideologies, economic interests and political agendas that lay behind British empire-building from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. This compelling account sheds new light on the changing nature of British imperialism, on power and intimacy in the encounter between East and West, and on the relationship of history and memory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

visionary
I thoroughly enjoyed the book.I love the perspective that the Dali Lama brings to the history of Asia.It really is a complete history of Tibet and the influence of its neighbors. Very well written and interesting. A must read for anyone interested in Buddhism.

To Understand Tibet-China Debate, Read this
"Conversations with the Dalai Lama" covers 9 years of in-depth meetings that the author had with the present Dalai Lama of Tibet about the history of that country. I found it so engrossing and wanted to share so much of it with you that I littered the pages with pieces of paper and finally resorted to dog-earing this poor copy in my hands. What a great project for one man of greatness and a sound background in history and life in Asia to undertake. He had the total confidence of the Dalai Lama and his insights and comments about how the Dalai Lama lives now is extremely interesting and helpful in understanding the man. I found this to be more helpful than anything I have read so far and recommend it without reservation to everyone reading this now!

A Case for A Free Tibet
This is a remarkable and valuable work which combines in one volume an entire bookshelf of concepts.First, it presents to the Western reader an overview of the history of Tibet from ancient times to the present.Secondly, it examines the sources of the People's Republic claim to the territory and people of Tibet and mounts a countervailing challenge.Thirdly and most uniquely, it records a series of interviews the author had with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, obtaining his view and commentary on the history of his native land.

In the final part of the book, history, challenge and commentary all come together in a unique exploration of the geopolitical issues concerning Tibet and China. One can see why this is such a thorny issue for the Chinese and why they desperately protest anything to do with the Dalai Lama and his visits to other nations.

Hollywood has made Tibet into Shangri-La, a mystic mountain land of wonders.Laird's portrait of this ancient land shows that the facts can be even more amazing.However, his overview of early history is uphill work for the reader.In sharp contrast, when he interviews the Dalai Lama, Laird adopts a more journalistic style and these interviews are real gems.The Dalai Lama is an authentic personality with a clear if unique perspective and the pages sparkle when he is talking, brimming with sadness, determination, optimism and humor.

The author has attempted to blend a conventional history with the commentary of an unconventional (by Western standards) man.That these things mix no better than oil and water is not the author's fault.The Dalai Lama's insistence that there is the common history that all can see plus an uncommon history working beyond the surface is an illuminating aspect to the ongoing drama between China and Tibet.

Western history meets Eastern commentary
Subtitled if boldly "Conversations with the Dalai Lama," this combines interviews and commentary about Tenzin Gyatso's homeland with Laird, who offers a popular history of the embattled nation. I stress "nation": this collaborative work stresses the claims that Tibet's entitled to its own independence, as it was taken over somewhat as a client state by the Mongols and then the Manchu rulers in tandem with China, not as a vassal of China itself, but around the same time, if in different contexts, from the larger subservient entity around present-day (if greater) Mongolia. This may smack of nitpicking, but in fact it distinguishes Tibetan rights to be recognized as its own sovereign state, rather than the dubious PRC (following the Kuomintang Nationalist government) argument that China should incorporate Tibet "back" into its empire.

If you have little interest in such a treatment, you'd best go elsewhere for more romantic or more propagandistic fare. This book, written for a wide audience, nonetheless devotes considerable space to debunking not only the illusion (held by some New Age admirers today) that a strife-free, non-martial Shambhala materialized in medieval times, but the common leftist riposte that it was a corrupt realm of cruel monks, feudal savagery, or serf-perpetuated ignorance. It's not always a grippingly narrated tale, especially in long stretches of tedious medieval and early modern sections, but the novelty of hearing Tibetan history echoed and elaborated by the Dalai Lama via Laird's own knowledge, interpretations, and comparisons to Western models makes this an inherently valuable document.

Laird's careful to assert his own Western understanding of how politics can infiltrate into the purportedly religious condition into which the Dalai Lamas have been born. He serves often as a skeptical foil for the Fourteenth Dalai Lama's hesitant disclaimers and introverted aversions to his leadership role when-- as a youth of sixteen-- he found himself set up by Mao to be manipulated, perhaps, into the Communist's potential dupe as their prize convert to collectivist purity and Marxist fervor. This poignant story of the current Dalai Lama's predicament's terribly deepened. You learn what's far too little taught: about 20-40 million whom Mao and his regime killed of their own people, and the 500,000-1.2 million Tibetans murdered since the triumph of Marxism. We in the West prefer often to ignore these facts, but such data have been compiled.

From Tibet, as Laird notes, we can predict how China may treat other minorities and neighbors, and how determinedly the PRC manipulates spokespeople from East and West whom it favors or monitors to tell its sanitized story in our media. This spin-doctoring proves relevant. It tells us if we care to hear beyond the commercials and the glitz many serious lessons amidst our global post-Olympic awe at China's supposed human rights "progress." The Dalai Lama's eloquent at times and then bitter when he summarizes the idealism of the early cadres, his own admiration for what he was promised would accompany Marxist reforms, and his own disillusionment at the spiritual and physical distortions that befall those Chinese who warped after young optimism for a cause curdled into deceit, invasion, and thuggery.

The brief accounts of torture, slaughter, and destruction inflicted on Tibet by China here humble you, and one must ask if China's advances economically and socially rest indeed on a legacy of rapine and plunder no less savage than that done by imperialists elsewhere. The Tibetans-- facing capitulation or extermination-- have been left with little choice. Despite the claims that many modern nations admire non-violent resistance more than revolution against tyranny, which countries stand by Tibet today? Out of all the United Nations in 1950, only El Salvador sponsored, as Laird shows years ago, a resolution in the UN condemning China's invasion, and such protests mattered in the long run about as much as may a few banner-waving activists in the Olympic Stadium a few days ago, I suppose, vs. the clout that 1.3 billion people hold over the silence of 6 million natives of Tibet. I hope I am disproved in the future.

One intriguing aspect of this story of overwhelming force vs. principled resistance emerges in how the Dalai Lama had to survive with next to nothing of worldliness or a knowledge of realpolitik let alone the outside world when he had to deal with being a prize captive-- or hostage so to speak-- of Mao and his minions in the early 1950s. Laird prods the Dalai Lama to reveal more of his own reactions to this dangerous diplomatic situation in which he suddenly found himself. Eager manipulations and nimble retellings of history by the PRC belie their frequent mendacity regarding the status of Tibet today and historically. What the Dalai Lama articulates historically-- in talks with Laird-- as a patron-priest relationship of Tibetan rulers with their Chinese contacts and Mongol emissaries, akin to popes and emperors in medieval Europe, becomes more the predecessor for the Mongol-Tibetan and then Chinese-Tibetan power-sharing rather than the hegemony willed by China, past and present.

Regarding critiques by other reviewers, I found that Laird never strikes a worshipful tone or a credulous stance towards what the Dalai Lama explains or what Tibet's defenders counter. Laird gives as good as he gets, and he holds his own ground against what he regards now and then as the naivete or intransigence of his formidable interlocutor, one of the very few people alive who, as Laird comments, has dealt with every president from FDR on. The Dalai Lama and Laird talked at length over a period of years, but they never become over-familiar. It's a meeting of two smart people, rather than inspirational claptrap, conversational blather, or pat platitudes. It's a study in how the world works, vs. how some of us less wordly would like it to work.

The appeal of Buddhism also permeates parts of the Dalai Lama's exchanges with Laird, a skeptic at best. Even he is moved by the compassion the Dalai Lama embodies. He sees what we cannot: a double vision of the common and the uncommon. This fits not only with Buddhism acceptance of transience and impermanence, but with, as Laird cleverly shows, many Westerners in their acceptance of the Resurrection despite its clashing with "facts." If billions can believe in the rising of one from the dead despite our everyday knowledge that what's dead stays dead, then, looking at Tibet through the Dalai Lama's eyes, we can better perceive the multiple perspective appreciated by him and other Buddhist adepts.

Such similarities and contrasts with our own culture and mindsets make this one of the book's strongest appeals for readers curious, unfamiliar, or mystified by the continuing appeal of Tibet in the judgment and dreams of so much of the world today. Tibet's not a mystical playground, but it has amassed a cultural patrimony and spiritual legacy worth preserving, and its defense should -- in an idealistic world again-- remain our priority even in our debased condition! You don't have to be Buddhist to learn many lessons here.

Impressive Work on Tibet
This book is a fabulous source for any one interested in Tibet, it's history, culture, as well as the situation today.The scope is so broad that it reflects on the history of all of Asia. ... Read more

Product Description
The first comprehensive survey of the important corpus of Indic literatureon Sanskrit grammar, extant in Tibetan translation in the Buddhist canon.Core of the study is the description of the forty-seven Sanskrit grammaticaltreatises covering some two thousand folios in the canon. The contents ofthese texts and the historical information regarding their Tibetan translatorsare examined in detail. Further chapters are devoted to the grammaticalanalysis in an eighth-century Tibetan handbook for translators, and to datafrom Tibetan historiography.The book offers the first systematic study of the extent and the historicaldevelopment of the Tibetan expertise in Sanskrit grammar, a central scholasticdiscipline in Buddhism. It opens up a section of Tibetan literature essentialto the understanding of the Indo-Tibetan indigenous grammatical traditions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Review of Tibet by Norbu and Turnbull
Hardback copy personally given to me by Thubten Jigme nORBU, ELDER BROTHER OF THEdALAI lAMA, tHE Book g9ves a detailed explanation of Tibetan beliefs. ... Read more

Product Description
Plunging deep into the history of the Roof of the World, this book introduces us to the one the greatest tragedies of modern times, its main characters as well as the forces moving them, consciously or unconsciously.

Customer Reviews (1)

Basic information and very good photos helps you visualize what you can see on your trip to Tibet
Although this book provides information about the tourist sites of Tibet, I think it is more a photographic book, helping you visualize what you can see on your trip to Tibet.

It includes a 28-page section on Lhasa and the surrounding area, including rare photos inside the Jokhang and Potala Palace. It has a section on Monasteries featuring Shigatse Tashilhunpo, Gyantse Kumbum, Samye and Sakya. It also includes Mount Everest and Mount Kailash.

The photos are very good. ... Read more

Product Description
A history of the 17th and 18th century Tibet, dealing with the period from the first to the 5th Dalai Lama and the unification of Tibet. ... Read more

Product Description
China's policies towards Tibet and other ethnic border territories during the political reign of Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists are often understood as a deliberate exercise of power. In this groundbreaking study, Hsiao-ting Lin demonstrates that the frontier was the subject neither of concerted aggression on the part of a centralized and indoctrinated Chinese government, nor of an ideologically driven nationalist ethnopolitics.

Lin utilizes recently declassified Chinese official documents to reveal how the Nationalist sovereignty over Tibet and other border regions was more the result of rhetorical grandstanding on the part of Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist regime than a definite plan to exert control over the region. He reveals that it was not until the Sino-Japanese war (1937-45) that the besieged wartime Nationalists took the opportunity to push Han Chinese authority farther west. Whether a matter of state building or regime survival, this development pressed postwar China's territorial extension of its previously imaginary state control into Central Asia, the consequences of which still reverberate in the region.

Tibet and Nationalist China's Frontier makes a crucial contribution to the understanding of past and present China-Tibet relations. A counterpoint to erroneous historical assumptions, this book will change the way Tibetologists and modern Chinese historians frame future studies of the region. ... Read more

Product Description
In her compelling memoir of personal transformation, Jane Bay takes us on apilgrimage to India where we meet Tibetans, both exiles and those now suffering under Chineseoppression, and experience with her the liberating lessons of impermanence, compassion,commitment, and love. In this inspiring story, Bay's own metamorphosis is inextricably linkedwith the heroic struggle of the Tibetan people, and the Buddhist faith that is the source of theirstrength--and her own.

On her trip through India, Bay is accompanied by a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Lobsang Samten,through a series of adventures and spiritual passages that will change her life forever.While inDharamsala, the present home of the Dalai Lama, she becomes the foster mother of a teenage girlat the Tibetan Children's Village.Unable to have children of her own, Bay becomes deeplyinvolved in the life of her foster daughter, Namgyal, whose own mother had died in Tibet.Astrong bond is forged between mother and daughter through many months of correspondence andJane is devastated when she learns the Chinese government has forced Namgyal and otherchildren studying in India to return to the "motherland."To refuse would endanger Namgyal'sremaining family in Lhasa; ironically, going back to her homeland will endanger her ownidentity--the Chinese regime ruthlessly suppresses the study of Tibetan language, culture andreligion.

In the hope of finding her foster daughter, Bay embarks on a journey to Tibet, again travelingwith her spiritual friend, Lobsang, who returns at great personal risk after thirty-eight years inexile.He hopes to find his older brothers who were unable to escape when the Chinese armyswept across the high Tibetan plateau in 1959.Their search takes them from the temples ofLhasa to towns brutalized by Chinese occupation, to destroyed monasteries, and remote nomadicoutposts.

The author interweaves her own story with the experiences of the Tibetans she came to know andwith Buddhist teachings that have helped to illuminate her contemporary personal odyssey.Hercandid observations as well as her informative descriptions of current conditions in Tibet makethis book a poignant and emotionally gripping story. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A journey of surprises revealing a heroic struggle.
"Woven through a stimulating journey, filled with the surprises oftravel in such an exotic land, are the wonderful pearls of Pablo Neruda,the Vajra-and-Bell Initiation, words from one of my favorites ChiefSeattle, teachings of the Great Perfection and many more.Jane Bay'sjourney and narrative is the thread that holds the "Jewels" ofthis necklace as one piece.But most important of all, I gained from herbook a new appreciation for the heroic struggle of the precious Tibetanpeople."

a heartfelt and emotional journey - well worth the read
"Precious Jewels of Tibet" speaks to us from the heart as JaneBay shares with the reader her innermost thoughts and feelings on her lifeas she embarks on an incredible journey of transformation. We are lucky tohave Jane share her story with us. As we feel her joy and sorrow, we get intouch with our own painful and joyous journeys of self discovery.

Highly recommended to anyone seeking inspiration.
Jane Bay has written a poignant memoire about her mystical journey to Tibet.How insightful it is for us to observe the allegory of her spiritual unfoldment, from her wounded life to wounded Tibet.Indeed, modernism has resolved a number of vicissitudes at the superficial realm of existence, but it has simultaneously magnified a piercing existential dismemberment, while escaping the most fundamental plight of the human being: the aspiration to surpass oneself, like The Buddha. Jane Bay has experienced an intimate experience of felicity.I recommend "Precious Jewels of Tibet" to anyone probing the same everlasting question : Who am I ? Graciously echoed by Jane Bay' s gifted prose, this book is a window to the quintessential matters of the soul, a longing that is invested right now, for each of us, with a very vital meaning. ... Read more