Tibet, Tibet
Basic information
- Author: French Patrick
- Publisher: Penguin Books
- Availability: Available
- Condition: Excellent
- Code: 76495
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Tibet, Tibet
French Patrick
Summary
Patrick French: Tibet, Tibet
When Patrick French was a teenager, the Dalai Lama visited his school in northern England. Fascinated by this exotic apparition, French began what would become a lifelong quest to understand Tibet, myth and fact. He would immerse himself in history, travel as a guest of ordinary Tibetans – nuns, nomads and exiles – and organize Free Tibet activists from an office in London. Now he gives us a kaleidoscopic account of that journey.
Part memoir, part travelogue, part history, Tibet, Tibet breaks out of our world-weary fantasies to reveal the truth behind a culture's struggle for survival. In French's story, a country revered for its peaceful spirituality reveals its surprising early history of fierce warfare. There are also centuries-old legends about how Tibetan diplomats skillfully maneuvered at the Chinese court, legends that shape one nation's opinion of another to this day. A perennial vassal state, Tibet nevertheless managed to preserve its distinctive culture for centuries - until the twentieth, when Mao's superior forces destroyed everything with devastating speed.
Today, while Chinese tourists take photos and buy kitsch in Tibetan monasteries, young nuns quietly continue the underground struggle against communist rule. In Dharamsala, over cappuccinos, exiled monks preach their cause to Western pilgrims dressed in ornate robes. The Tibetans remember the terrible days of the Great Leap Forward and eagerly ask the French for news of the Dalai Lama. In the presence of this internationally respected spiritual and political leader, French retains a measure of his youthful wonder, but eventually, inevitably, comes to unsettling conclusions about His Holiness's role in the collective tragedy of his people.
With vast learning and a clear but compassionate eye, Patrick French gives us a sober new understanding of the senseless catastrophe of a culture and allows us to see what realistically can—and cannot—be done to make it alleviate.
Additional information
- Author: French Patrick
- Publisher: Penguin Books
- Year of publication:2003
- Place of publication:Engleska
- Pages:333
- Dimensions:13x20 cm
- Script:Latin script
- Condition:Excellent
- Binding:Softcover
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