The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama | 
| Author: Thomas Laird
Publisher: Grove Press
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 263361
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1.4
ISBN: 080214327X
Dewey Decimal Number: 951
EAN: 9780802143273
ASIN: 080214327X
Publication Date: October 10, 2007
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Product Description
Over the course of three years, journalist Thomas Laird spent more than sixty hours with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in candid, one-on-one interviews that covered history, science, reincarnation, and Buddhism. Laird brings these meetings to life in rich, vibrant, and monumental work that outlines the essence of thousands of years of civilization, myth, and spirituality. Tibet’s story is rich with tradition and filled with promise. It begins with the Bodhisattva Chenrizi (“The Holy One”) whose spirit many Tibetans believe resides within the Dalai Lama. We learn the origins of Buddhism, and about the era of Great Tibetan Emperors, whose reign stretched from southwestern China to Northern India. His Holiness introduces us to Tibet’s greatest yogis and meditation masters, and explains how the institution of the Dalai Lama was founded. Laird explores, with His Holiness, Tibet’s relations with the Mongols, the Golden Age under the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, Tibet’s years under Manchu overlords, modern independence in the early twentieth century, and the Dalai Lama’s personal meetings with Mao just before His Holiness fled into exile in 1959. The Story of Tibet is “a tenderly crafted study that is equal parts love letter, traditional history, and oral history” (Publishers Weekly).
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Impressive Work on Tibet January 28, 2008
This book is a fabulous source for any one interested in Tibet, it's history, culture, as well as the situation today. The scope is so broad that it reflects on the history of all of Asia.
The book for newcomers to Tibet November 13, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I read this book a week after going to Tibet for the first time in October, 2007. It confirmed everything that I experienced in Tibet with a former monk as the guide for our group of 20 (China Focus Tours), and enriched our experience enormously. I'm glad I read it soon after the trip so the place names, experiences, history and relationship with China were so fresh. We had been warned in China not to ask about or comment on politics or religion while we were in Tibet. I did ask one mild question and got a reply from our guide that clearly told me that he could not respond.
The book will probably tell general readers more than they want to know about the intricacies of the changes of rule over the last fourteen hundred years but it helped me understand the richness of Tibetan Buddhism. I found it well written and fascinating throughout. The author clearly has a pro-Dalai Lama bias (how else could he have arranged the many interviews with the Dalai Lama?). We found China to be virulently anti-Dalai Lama and this book helped me understand that. The personal details of the Dalai Lama's life and the lives of his predecessors gave me a full sense of what it has meant to be Tibetan both recently and in the long history.
We knew that China had changed Tibet enormously in recent years but we were astounded on our visit to see how they have been moving Han Chinese into Lhasa and changing the face of Tibet. "The Story of Tibet" helped us understand how the incursion of China since the 50's has changed the culture that visitors will see--as long as the Tibetans aren't completely submerged by the Chinese. It seems about 50/50 now. Brief visits to Sera Monastery with our ex-monk guide who had lived there 14 years, to Jokhang Temple when no other tourists were there and to a non-tourist village outside Lhasa during harvest helped me understand the Tibetan culture described well in "The Story of Tibet."
I also recommend Tsering Shakya's "The Dragon in the Land of Sorrow" for a very detailed history of Tibet since 1947. "The Story of Tibet" covers in 65 pages and much less detail what Tsering Shakya describes much more fully in 450 pages.
We learned while we were in Tibet that the Potala Palace will be closed next year before the Olympics in Beijing, probably permanently. A new museum is being built at the base of the Potala that will show visitors what the Chinese government wants them to know about Tibetan Buddhism and this marvelous building. We were there in early October, 2007. Go now.The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947
The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama August 28, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love this book. It was an easy book to read, more conversational than like a text or history book. I learned so much about Tibetan history, art, culture and Budhism. I highly recommend reading "The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama". dBahr
 The Dalai Lama Speaks to History August 5, 2007
At a very young age, he had to make decisions that his experience and education did not prepare him for. Tibet's history, culture and geography and the disposition of China's rulers assured that none of the options would have a good result. Through the years, the Dalai Lama has acquired wisdom and grace.
Laird reports the story of Tibet as seen through its spiritual leader. The circumstances of history have left Tibet standing alone, unable to defend itself from neither battle with nor assimilation from its large and influential neighbor. Laird and the Lama take us through pre-history, the Mongol incursions, the development of monestaries, the flight of the Dalai Lama and the sacking of the monestaries in the Cultural Revolution to the current stage of Chinese settlement.
As expected, the book is at its best in the era of the 14th Dalai Lama, since so much detail can be provided. I presume the interviews in this part will part of the canon for future historians of Tibet.
The amazing thing about this narrative, as Laird points out, when Tibet is to blame, the Dalai Lama does not cover. He recognizes the abuses of the nobles, the brutal society, the lack of technology, and even the feudal conditions brought on by the church-state which he in name headed. Not many rulers would admit to the role of internecine strife and the betrayal of the people by its aristocracy as a factor in its inability to ward off the influence of a larger nation as the Dalai Lama does. Laird sympathetically explains the Dalai Lama's difficulties in pursuing a non-violent path to autonomy (recognizing the inability to achieve independence).
One era not mentioned in this history is the arrival of the Europeans.The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama, and the First British Expedition to Tibet gives a good portrait of Tibet-Chinese relations in this period. While relations were cordial, China had "minders" planted in Tibet, watching and reporting all.
 Incorrect and distorted view of history May 23, 2007
6 out of 26 found this review helpful
This book makes claims that are not well research and historically incorrect. It is one thing to quote conversation with the Dalai Lama, it is another thing for the author to reach conclusions with incorrect and distorted historical facts. In addition, the book reaches conclusions that simply do not make logical sense. In one claim, the author states that Tibet is not a part of China by saying the Manchus instead of the Chinese controlled Tibet. His view of China is limited to the China over one thousand years ago and a person who's ancestry is not of Chinese over one thousands ago, is not considered to be Chinese by Thomas Laird. It is like saying no one in America is considered American unless he/she a native American. The Manchus are a ethnic minority in China just like the Blacks and Hispanics are in United States. The author offer a sample and distorted conclusions on Tibet. Read the book if you will and listen to what the Dalai Lama's view on the matter, but ignore the silly conclusions made by the author. If you really want to learn the truth about Tibet don't just read this book, read something that opposes Dalai Lama's view as well. Learn the type of society Tibet was when Dalai Lama was in Tibet.
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