Author: Helena Norberg-Hodge
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 204
ISBN/UPC (if available): 978-0-19-563196-8
Description
This book raises important questions about the whole notion of progress, and explores the root causes of the malaise of industrial society. Everyone who cares about the future of this planet, about their children’s future, and about the deterioration in the quality of our won society, should read this book.
At the same time, the story of Ladakh serves as a source of inspiration for our own future.
Ladakh, or Little Tibet is a place of few resources and an extreme climate. Yet, for more than a thousand years, it has been home to a thriving culture. Traditions of frugality and co-operation, coupled with an intimate and location-specific knowledge of the environment, enabled the Ladakhis not only to survive, but to prosper.
Then came modernization, ostensibly a means to progress and real prosperity. Now in the modern sector one finds pollution and divisiveness, intolerance and greed. Centuries of ecological balance and social harmony are under threat from the pressures of Western consumerism.
EXCERPT FROM REVIEWS
A sensitive, thought-provoking account.
-New York Review of Books.
Contents
Preface by H H The Dalai Lama
Introduction by Peter Matthiessen
PROLOGUE: Learning from Ladakh
PART ONE: TRADITION
Little Tibet
Living with the Land
Doctors and Shamans
We Have to Love Together
An Unchoreographed Dance
Buddhism-A Way of Life
Joie de Vivre
PART TWO: CHANGE
The Coming of the West
People from Mars
Money Makes the World Go Round
From Lama to Engineer
Learning the Western Way
A Pull to the Center
A People Divided
PART THREE: LOOKING AHEAD
Nothing Is Black, Nothing Is White
The Development Hoax
Counter-Development
The Ladakh Project
EPILOGUE: ANCIENT FUTURES
Reading List
Index