So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas
Product DescriptionFor more than a thousand years Tibet, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Bhutan were the santuaries of Tantric Buddhism. But in the last half of this century, geopolitics has scoured the landscape of the Himalayas, and only the reclusive kingdom of Bhutan remains true to Tantric Buddhism. As she travels through Bhutan and its neighbots, Crossette introduces readers to a world that has emerged from the middle ages only to find itself peering into the abyss of modernity. . . . More >>
So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas
Worst book ever on the subject. The author has no clue what Buddhism is. I doubt if she’s even been here in this part of the world. -Sidhartha
Rating: 1 / 5
Barbara is pushing her political agenda in this book which detracts from its value.
Rating: 1 / 5
Writers who paint one side of the coin are a bane to the world. Governments records and things as they seem do not make a truth. No body, I repeat, nobody can write the true story about Bhutan if he/she has not been a Bhutanese for entire life. Crossette does not know and will never know the atrocities perpretated by the compassionate “Buddhist King” of Bhutan. She will never know how my fatehr was hung upside down and beaten for not being obedient to the compassionate King. She will never know the fear psychosis of the Bhutanese regime that is strangling itself. Bhutan, the land is beautiful and exotic otherwise I would not be wasting my time telling you it is. The captivating landscape and the mystic religion is a blanket under which tortures and rapes went on, whoile some journalists and historians lost themselves in the myth of the oxymoron, “democratic monarchy”. The other side would have blamed Barbara if she had been objective and sensitive to the facts. I blame her because I do not beleive that a minority trhat is seized by fear losing power will be justified to kill. Anyway, Kudos to barbara for the effort. The next book on Bhutan will be written by an author who will have the freedom to see Bhutan freely.
Rating: 1 / 5
So Close to Heaven is a clear and thoughtful look at Bhutan and other (now vanished) Himalayan kingdoms. Crossette is an excellent traveling companion, blending research, analysis and personal observation in a very readable and informative text.
Rating: 4 / 5
Subtitled “The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas,” So Close to Heaven doesn’t quite live up to its billing. About three quarters of the book focuses on the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, with perfunctory chapters on Sikkim, Ladakh and Nepal, and nothing at all on Tibet, the region’s former center of scholarship and religious authority. Nor is there more than passing reference to Dharmasala, seat of the Tibetan exile government headed by the Dalai Lama.
Even so this is a readable introduction to the people and history of the Buddhist cultures of the Himalayas. A first-person account of her travels through the region organized topically, former New York Times correspondent Barbara Crosette never ventures into the territory of modern travel writers to describe how the journey changes the writer. She writes instead as she would for her newspaper, with great attention to the facts of history and details of her surroundings, allowing the reader to feel immersed in this often exotic corner of the world, one that has over the last half century been slowly disappearing as development encroaches on traditional culture and as powerful neighbors usurp political independence. Unfortunately, for a reporter from such a prestigious news organization she makes little effort to investigate claims of human rights abuses against the Bhutanese monarchy, with which she admits having cordial and cozy relations.
First published in 1995, this volume remains in 2007 an interesting introduction to the region, a place slow to change and still experiencing many of the pressures and conflicts Crosette recorded a decade ago.
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Rating: 3 / 5