Holder of the White Lotus: The Lives of the Dalai Lama

By Alexander Norman

Book Overview

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is known to the world for his efforts to preserve Tibetan culture and for his inspiring spiritual teachings. Often unnoticed, however, is the long, colorful... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316859885
• ISBN13: 9780316859882
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Length: 446 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.6" x 6.2"

Customer Reviews

An objective history about Tibet

In "The Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama," Mr.Norman states that he is a friend of the present Dalai Lama who, in fact, has written a laudatory preface to this book. This didn't prevent the author to be quite objective in his socio-cultural history of Tibet. It would seem that throughout the country's history, the Tibetan aristocracy (lay or religious) rode roughshod on its shoeless and impoverished peasants, while endlessly fighting among themselves and, when rarely united, against foreign overlords. This reality is at quite a distance from the Tibet imagined in certain Western circles. Longish and sometimes hard to follow, yet an excellent book and a must read for these interested in this mysterious and secretive country.