History, Activism & Politics
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A HISTORY OF MODERN TIBET, Volume 2: The Calm before the Storm, 1951-1955 by Melvyn C. Goldstein 630 pp., cloth, 26 b&w photos, 4 maps. #HIMOT2 - $ 60.00 It is not possible to fully understand contemporary politics between China and the Dalai Lama without understanding what happened--and why--during the 1950s. In a book that continues the story of Tibet's history that he began in his acclaimed A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State, Melvyn C. Goldstein critically revises our understanding of that key period in midcentury. This authoritative account utilizes new archival material, including never before seen documents, and extensive interviews with Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, and with Chinese officials. Goldstein furnishes fascinating and sometimes surprising portraits of these major players as he deftly unravels the fateful intertwining of Tibetan and Chinese politics against the backdrop of the Korean War, the tenuous Sino-Soviet alliance, and American cold war policy. | |
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THE HOLY LAND REBORN: Pilgrimage and the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India by Toni Huber Cloth. 502 pp. #HOLARE - $ 45.00 "A fascinating work of scholarship on the Tibetan obsession with the `holy land' of India, at once entertaining and edifying. Even that most stable-seeming of realities, physical location itself, is here shown to be a product of cultural creation. In this case what is more at issue than the Indian subcontinent itself is how the imagination of its Buddhist sacred sites shaped the landscape of Tibetan Buddhism, on the other side of the Himalayas."—Janet Gyatso, Harvard Divinity School More ... | |
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INDO-TIBETAN BUDDHISM: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors by David Snellgrove 656 pp, 125 b&w images, cloth. #INDOBU - $ 45.00 The most comprehensive survey available on Indian Buddhism and its development in Tibet--now back in print in a single volume. Concentrates on Buddhism from the eighth to thirteenth century when the Tibetans were actively engaged in absorbing Buddhist culture from India. | |
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LAMA OF THE GOBI: The Life and Times of Danzan Rabjaa, Mongolia's Greatest Mystical Poet Michael Kohn 163 pp. #LAGOLI - $ 12.95 Known as the Fifth Noyon Incarnate Lama of the Gobi, Danzan Rabjaa is Mongolia's best beloved saint and a great mystic. This well-written account takes the reader through Mongolian history and nomadic traditions and investigates the many legends surrounding the poet. Lama of the Gobi is an account of the life and times of this extraordinary man. It carries the reader through Mongolian history, Buddhism and the traditions of nomadic culture, to generate an appreciation of both the man and the many legends that surround him. More ... | |
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MEMORIES OF LIFE IN LHASA UNDER CHINESE RULE by Tubten Khetsun, trans. and intro. by Matthew Akester Cloth. 318 pp. #MELILH - $ 32.50 This is the first unmediated, single-authored autobiography to appear in English by a Tibetan who lived through Lhasa's gulag era of the 1960s and 1970s. Tubten Khetsun, an officer in the former Tibetan government, is an assiduous and unflinching chronicler of events and their details. He has produced a book that has little trace of the rhetoric or emotion of nationalist loss. Instead, he offers an unvarnished account of the everyday mechanics of socialist transformation as he experienced it in Tibet. The result, in this meticulous translation, is a new and important source for understanding modern Tibeto-Chinese history as seen by inhabitants of the Tibetan capital."--Robert Barnett, director, Modern Tibetan Studies Program, Columbia University More ... | |
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MONEY, SEX, WAR, KARMA: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution by David R. Loy 160 pp. #MOSEWA - $ 15.95 Loy's "Buddhist Revolution" is nothing less than a radical change in the way we approach our lives, our planet, and our future, offering transformative insights into the causes behind worldwide troubles. More ... | |
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THE NYINGMA SCHOOL OF TIBETAN BUDDHISM: Its Fundamentals and History by Dudjom Rinpoche (Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje), translated, edited, and annotated by Matthew Kapstein and Gyurme Dorje 1584 pp., cloth. #NYSC - $ 90.00 Written by a great modern Nyingma master, Dudjom Rinpoche's The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism covers in detail and depth both the fundamental teachings and the history of Tibetan Buddhism's oldest school. This, the first English translation of His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche's masterwork, constitutes the most complete work of its type in the West. It is an absolute treasure for students of the tradition, it is also an indispensable reference for anyone with an interest in Buddhism. The book includes chronologies and glossaries that elucidate Buddhist doctrine, and it provides fascinating insights into the Buddhist history of Tibet. More ... | |
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THE OPEN ROAD: The Global Journey of the XIVth Dalai Lama by Pico Iyer Cloth. 275 pp. #OPROGL - $ 24.00 One of the most acclaimed and perceptive observers of globalism and Buddhism now gives us the first serious consideration—for Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike—of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s work and ideas as a politician, scientist, and philosopher. More ... | |
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PRACTICING PEACE IN TIMES OF WAR by Pema Chodron New in pocket-sized paperback! 106 pp. #PRPEIN - $ 7.95 With war and violence flaring up around the world, many of us are left feeling vulnerable and utterly helpless. In this book Pema Chodron draws on Buddhist teachings to explore the origins of aggression, hatred, and war, explaining that they lie nowhere but within our own hearts and minds. Pema shows us that, remarkably, the way in which we as individuals respond to challenges in our everyday lives can either perpetuate a culture of violence or create a new culture of compassion. More ... | |
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THE RI-ME PHILOSOPHY OF JAMGON KONGTRUL THE GREAT: A Study of the Buddhist Lineages of Tibet by Ringu Tulku, edited by Ann Helm 318 pp. #RIPHPA - $ 19.95 Jamgon Kongtrul the Great (1813-1899) is renowned not only for his scholarly and spiritual achievements, but also for his energetic and evenhanded efforts to unify and strengthen the different lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. This lucid survey of the Rime movement includes the history and philosophy of the movement; a biography of meditation master Jamgon Kongtrul; and summaries of the major lineages' histories, practices, and views. More ... | |
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THE STORY OF TIBET: Conversations with the Dalai Lama by Thomas Laird Cloth, 288 pp. #STTICO - $ 27.50 Our editorial staff couldn't wait to read this well-written, interesting book in which the Dalai Lama speaks at length about the story of Tibet. These candid, intimate interviews cover His Holiness's beliefs about history, science, reincarnation, and Buddhism, Tibet's relations with the Mongols; the Golden Age under the Great Fifth Dalai Lama; and finally the Dalai Lama's meetings with Mao-Tse Tung. The Story of Tibet is the Dalai Lama's personal look at his country's past, and also a summation of a life's work as the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. More ... | |
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TIBET'S ANCIENT RELIGION: Bon by Christoph Baumer Cloth. 200 pp., 9.5" x 12.5". #TIANRE - $ 60.00 Few people realize how deeply Tibetan Buddhism has been influenced by the ancient Bon tradition, which is marked by shamanism and practices such as the use of prayer flags, circumambulations, oracles and rituals. Filled with over hundreds of color photos, this wonderful book introduces the myths, culture, monasteries and a lot more of this living tradition. Introduction by the spiritual head of the Bonpo. More ... | |
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THE TIBETANS by Matthew Kapstein Cloth. 304 pp., 45 b&w photos, maps. #TIBE - $ 29.95 A comprehensive introduction to Tibet, orienting the reader to the Tibetan geographical region and its inhabitants, this well-researched book discusses Tibetan religious and political history, together with major aspects of Tibetan culture: social institutions, religious and philosophical traditions, literature, and the arts. A concluding chapter discusses the fragile position of Tibetan civilization in the modern world, surveying events that have transpired since Tibet's incorporation into the People's Republic of China. More ... | |
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THE TIBETAN ASSIMILATION OF BUDDHISM: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory by Matthew T. Kapstein 336 pp., 14 b&w photos, glossary, biblio., index, paperback. #TIASPA - $ 35.00 Explores the manner in which Buddhism penetrated Tibetan religious thought and became a core component of Tibetan identity. Kapstein examines Tibet's eighth-century conversion to Buddhism, the tensions that arose from competing lines of transmission and interpretation, and the continuing revelation of Buddhist teaching in the myths and doctrines of the ancient Nyingmapa school. | |
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TIBETAN BUDDHISTS IN THE MAKING OF MODERN CHINA by Gray Tuttle 352 pp., 12 photos cloth. #TIBUMO - regular price $ 45.00 Our Price $33.75 "In Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China, Gray Tuttle sheds welcome light upon the relations among Chinese and Tibetan religious masters, seekers and warlords during the crucial period spanning the decline of the Manchu dynasty and the foundation of the People's Republic. The compelling history that Tuttle relates here, on the basis of extensive original research in Chinese and Tibetan sources, is of fundamental importance for the study of modern China and Tibet, and above all, for an understanding of the complex religious relationship that at once both unites and divides Tibetans and Chinese."--Matthew Kapstein, the University of Chicago Divinity School More ... | |
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TIBETAN RENAISSANCE: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture by Ronald M. Davidson 598 pp. Maps, photos, figures. #TIRERO - regular price $ 32.50 Our Price $21.13 How did a society on the edge of collapse and dominated by wandering bands of armed men give way to a vibrant Buddhist culture, led by yogins and scholars? Ronald M. Davidson explores how the translation and spread of esoteric Buddhist texts dramatically shaped Tibetan society and led to its rise as the center of Buddhist culture throughout Asia, replacing India as the perceived source of religious ideology and tradition. More ... | |
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THE VIOLENCE OF LIBERATION: Gender and Tibetan Buddhist Revival in Post-Mao China by Charlene E. Makley 276 pp. maps, illustrations. #VIOFLI - $ 24.95 Drawing from thirteen years of archival research and fieldwork, and synthesizing social theory drawn from anthropology, political economy, gender studies, and linguistic anthropology, Makley finds that incorporation of Tibetan Buddhist regions into China had quite different effects for Tibetan men and women, creating painful dilemmas across generations. Her innovative study provides a sensitive and controversial examination of many different Tibetan voices and opens a new perspective on Sino-Tibetan relations in this important frontier region. More ... | |
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WHY THE DALAI LAMA MATTERS: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World by Robert Thurman Cloth, 256 pp. #WHDALA - $ 24.00 Why the Dalai Lama Matters explores just why the spiritual leader has earned the world's love and respect, and how restoring Tibet's autonomy within China is not only possible, but highly reasonable, and absolutely necessary for all of us together to have a peaceful future as a global community. More ... | |