Westerners have long imagined the Himalayas as the world's last untouched place and a repository of redemptive power and wisdom. Beatniks, hippie seekers, spiritual tourists, mountain climbers—diverse groups of people have traveled there over the years, searching for their own personal Shangri-La. In Far Out, Mark Liechty traces the Western fantasies that captured the imagination of tourists in the decades after World War II, asking how the idea of Nepal shaped the everyd...

Suitably Modern traces the growth of a new middle class in Kathmandu as urban Nepalis harness the modern cultural resources of mass media and consumer goods to build modern identities and pioneer a new sociocultural space in one of the world's "least developed countries."Since Nepal's "opening" in the 1950s, a new urban population of bureaucrats, service personnel, small business owners, and others have worked to make a space between Kathmandu's old (and still privileged) ...

Recently anthropology has turned to accounts of persons-in-history/history-in-persons, focusing on how individuals and groups as agents both fashion and are fashioned by social, political, and cultural discourses and practices. In this approach, power, agency, and history are made explicit as individuals and groups work to constitute themselves in relation to others and within and against sociopolitical and historical contexts.Contributors to this volume extend this emphasis, drawi...

A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the bestselling author of Nothing to Envy“A brilliantly reported and eye-opening work of narrative nonfiction.”—The New York Times Book ReviewNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Parul Sehgal, The New York Times • The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • NPR • The Economist • Ou...

The most essential insight that Buddhism offers is that all our individual suffering arises from three and only three sources, known in Buddhism as the three poisons: greed, ill-will, and delusion. In The Great Awakening, scholar and Zen teacher David Loy examines how these three poisons, embodied in society's institutions, lie at the root of all social maladies as well. The teachings of Buddhism present a way that the individual can counteract these to alleviate personal sufferin...

The Wisdom of Sustainability continues E. F. Schumacher s groundbreaking work on Buddhist economics in Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. Emphasizing small-scale, indigenous, sustainable alternatives to globalization, Sulak offers hope and alternatives for restructuring our economies based on Buddhist principles and personal development.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • For Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, “an exceptionally intimate portrait” (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love) of the Dalai Lama—one of the most singular figures of our time.For over three decades, Pico Iyer, one of our most cherished travel writers, has been a friend to the Dalai Lama. Over these years through intimate conversations, he has come to know him in a way that few can claim. Here he paints an unprecedented port...

Pema Chödrön, Joan Halifax, and ten other female Tibetan Buddhist teachers share inspiring personal stories, revealing how we can embody Buddhist wisdom and overcome everyday challengesWhat drives a young London librarian to board a ship to India, meditate in a remote cave by herself for twelve years, and then build a flourishing nunnery in the Himalayas? How does a surfer girl from Malibu become the head of the main international organization for Buddhist women? W...

Do you want to be on the cutting edge of the future of yoga?If you desire an authentic yoga practice embracing ancient yogic philosophy and traditions but don't know how to embody that knowledge with integrity in today's modern yoga culture, Embrace Yoga's Roots is your guide to honor and not appropriate yoga."When we mistake yoga for a workout routine, reduce it to physical fitness or even do some of the deeper aspects of yoga without an eye t...

This is the Dalai Lama at his most human, and most humane, offering rare insight and behind-the-scenes stories about his interactions with remarkable people from all walks of life. Don't miss the Dalai Lama's classic book, The Art of Happiness, or his newest,The Book of Joy, named one of Oprah's Favorite Things.The Wisdom of Compassion shows how His Holiness the Dalai Lama approaches the world with playfulness, optimism, and a profound em...

Seven voices contribute to this rare glimpse of the work being done on the front lines of the fight for social change in India. Playing with Fire is written in the collective voice of women employed by a large NGO as activists in their communities and is based on diaries, interviews, and conversations among them. Together their personal stories reveal larger themes and questions of sexism, casteism, and communalism, and a startling picture emerges of how NGOs both nourish and stifle local ...

Appropriately Indian is an ethnographic analysis of the class of information technology professionals at the symbolic helm of globalizing India. Comprising a small but prestigious segment of India’s labor force, these transnational knowledge workers dominate the country’s economic and cultural scene, as do their notions of what it means to be Indian. Drawing on the stories of Indian professionals in Mumbai, Bangalore, Silicon Valley, and South Africa, Smitha Radhakrishnan explains...