Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh [Paperback]

Helena Norberg-Hodge (Author), Peter Matthiessen (Introduction), His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 1992

The swiftly evolving socioeconomic life of Ladakh, whose people struggle to balance growth and technology with cultural values, offers crucial lessons in sustainable development. This gripping portrait of the western Himalayan land known as “Little Tibet” moves from the author’s first visit to idyllic, nonindustrial Ladakh in 1974 to the present, tracking profound changes as the region was opened to foreign tourists, Western goods and technologies, and pressures for economic growth. These changes in turn brought generational conflict, unemployment, inflation, environmental damage, and threats to the traditional way of life.
Appalled by these negative impacts, the author helped establish the Ladakh Project (later renamed the International Society for Ecology and Culture) to seek sustainable solutions that preserve cultural integrity and environmental health, while addressing the Ladakhis’ hunger for modernization. This model undertaking effectively combines educational programs for all social levels with the design, demonstration, and promotion of appropriate technologies such as solar heating and small-scale hydro power.
Examining how modernization changes the way people live and think, Norberg-Hodge challenges us to redefine our concepts of “development” and “progress.” Above all, Ancient Futures stresses the need to carry traditional wisdom into the future—our urgent task as a global community.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Norberg-Hodge first went to Ladakh in 1975 and has spent six months there every year since. This slim volume is her soapbox to air her views of how Ladakh should be. Part 1 is the romantic, idealized Shangri-la where everyone is happy and contented. Then she portrays Ladakh after the tourist invasions and economic development. Next is a tirade against multinational corporations that are responsible for all the world's problems (strange, since India banned most international companies 20 years ago). Finally, Norberg-Hodge describes her work in establishing local organizations to introduce local-level, low-capital inputs. A popular and sensitive introduction to Ladakh is needed, but this is not it. Not recommended.
- Donald Clay Johnson, Univ. of Minnesota Lib., Minneapolis
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"The celebration here of traditional Ladakhi life induces exhilaration but also sadness, as if some half-remembered paradise known in another life had now been lost. So evocative is it that I felt -- I'm not sure what -- homesickness?"

Peter Matthiessen, from the Introduction

"Though full of stories and photographs of the Ladakhi way of life. [Ancient Futures] is much more than a travelogue; it is . . . an ecologue .... The Western industrial 'monoculture' that has infected and endangers the rich ancient culture of Ladakhi is the one that is endangering us, its progenitors, as well. A book that must be heeded." Kirkpatrick Sale, The Nation

"A sensitive, thought-provoking account." New York Review off Books

"An indispensable book for people who are trying to protect rural life." Wendell Berry

"Everyone who cares about the future of this planet, about their children's future, and about the deterioration in the quality of life in our own society, should read [this book]." The Guardian (England) -- Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Sierra Club Books (August 18, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871566435
• ISBN-13: 978-0871566430
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 77 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Riches to Rags October 24, 2000

By Pam Hanna VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

The first half of *Ancient Futures* will delight and amaze you; the second half will break your heart.

In the 1970s, the Ladakhis of Little Tibet were a happy people. They had a sustainable traditional economy based on trade and cooperation - not money. One person's gain was not another person's loss. There was plenty of leisure, no hunger or poverty, very little sickness or disease, everyone was valued, there was no pollution and nothing was wasted. They got along fine with their Muslim neighbors and they kept their population stable through marriage customs based on land use. Almost every family had a celibate monk or nun. Buddhist monasteries and people had a mutually beneficial economic, social and spiritual relationship. Ladakhis are a naturally contemplative people with a great deal of spiritual awareness. "Schon chan" (one who angers easily) is about the only insult in the Ladakhi lnaguage. "Lack of pride is a virtue, for pride, born of ego, has nothing to do with self-respect among these Buddhist people." The author says that it took her two years of living among them to realize that the people were genuinely and joyfully HAPPY. Then the world beat a path to their door and all that changed - in fewer than two decades.

It's like a little piece of cultural time-lapse photography. What took western culture more than four centuries to do to the Native-Americans took only twenty years here. Ladakh has become a cautionary tale and a monument to western greed and stupidity....

Now there is poverty and unemployment, stress-related disease, women are devalued, the people are ashamed of their "backward" culture, there is little leisure but a great deal of pollution and waste as well as dispute between Muslims and Buddhists and the population had increased markedly. ("Interestingly, a number of Ladakhis have linked the rise of birth rates to the advent of modern democracy. "Power is a question of votes" is a current slogan, meaning that, in the modern sector, the larger your group, the greater your access to power. Competition for jobs and political representation within the new centralized structures is increasingly dividing Ladakhis.")

Chiildren are trained to become specialists in a technological rather than an ecological society. They no longer have time to learn the superb survival techniques of their families. Western culture is creating artificial scarsity and inducing competition.

Now I understand the mechanism better. A culture that has a heavily subsidized infrastructure invades a traditional self-sustaining culture and creates artificial "needs." So they go to the city to earn money which they never needed before, leaving their farms and women, who are immediately devalued because they're not wage earners. The people are no longer planting, irrigating, spinning wool, gathering seeds, harvesting, playing music and singing and telling stories, having seasonal parties, marriage parties or funeral watches - together.

Time has become a commodity. It has become uneconomical to grow one's own food, make one's own clothes and build one's own house. You have to pay your neighbors for the work that the whole community used to do for free.

The men are in the cities earning money and the women are producing tourist commodities with the wool they used to spin for their own use and the food they used to grow for their own families. Now they grow cash crops for strangers so they can make enough money to buy polyester clothes and walkmans and jeans for their kids and food grown hundreds of miles away and fuel trucked in from afar.

The Yak and the Dzo, uniquely suited for high altitudes of Ladakh gave rich milk but not as much as western cattle. So what did the conquering culture do? They imported cattle that can't make it at such altitudes, so more land has to be relegated to planting crops to feed the cattle, thereby upsetting the balance. And they call this progress.

Why can't we just leave people alone - especially when they're doing FINE without us?

"When one-third of the world's population consumes two-thirds of the world's resources," says Norberg-Hodge, "and then in effect turns around and tells the others to do as they do, it is little short of a hoax. Development is all too often a euphemism for exploitation, a new colonialism."

All this would be a dismal tragedy comparable to Columbus's complete genocide of the Tainos if not for a "counter development" movement generated in part by this author. Since the Ladakhis can't go back, they can at least go forward. Instead of importing expensive fossil fuels (previously they had used yak dung and kept warm) they can have solar houses and greenhouses, which have worked very well and given them one benefit that they have previously not had. That's something. Information is another plus. The people are being made aware that westerners pay more for whole grains, organic vegetables, pure water, natural fibers, and natural building materials - things these people have had for a thousand years without money. This is something so-called third-world people are generally not told about.

Once in a while a book comes along that changes one's perspective forever. *Ancient Futures* is such a book. I haven't been the same since.

One of the reviewers on this site said he ended up buy copies for his friends. So have I. This book is a must-read for every person who is concerned about the preservation of our planet and our species.

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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Intimate view of one society gives insights on our own May 1, 2000

By Christopher Burford

Format:Paperback

How does life in a non-industrial society compare to life in our own? In which society are people happier? If life in non-industrial societies compares favorably to life in our own, then why are the barrios of the third world filling up with migrants from remote villages? This book provides surprising insights into these questions. It also provokes reflections on our own society and its influence on the rest of the world. After reading a used copy I picked up for free, I bought seven copies of this book for friends and family!

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars ANOTHER WAY December 15, 2002

By J.W.K

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

After reading this book, I suddenly realized the root problem of Western Civilization: We have no culture. Where there was once culture, we now have an expanding economic order threatening all life on the planet. Through its mechanism of growth and expansion, the global economy is conquering and converting life's diversity into an ecological and social monoculture of cash crops, Levis, soda pop and movie theatres. Perhaps moonscape would be a better word. Of course, it doesn't have to be this way. Our fast-paced, increasingly technological, capital-intensive, fossil fuel-centered, centralized, highly specialized, travel and commercial-oriented, often stressful society is by no means the end-all-be-all of human history. Murder, child abuse, drug abuse, theft, poverty, hunger, and every other problem that plagues the West are not products of human nature. The pathology of civilization is not natural or inevitable, and the Ladakhi are proof of this. Read this book and rediscover ancient, profound, life-affirmating alternatives to the modern humdrum. Discover another way of living, thinking and feeling. Important, necessary, engaging and masterfully written - this book was a treasure to read. Indeed, it was an awaking.

A MUST READ

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful and Depressing March 14, 2001

By William J. Brown

Format:Paperback

Rarely have I felt more dispair about the direction of what we know as civilization as I felt halfway through this book. The Ladakh people are described as happy, healthy, and self-reliant. Suddenly, the "real world" happens to them, and they come to see themselves as poor, when before they had no need of money.

The authors do a nice job of weaving a story of hope at the end but I have concern for the future of these people. It helps me understand the decision the government of Bhutan has made to isolate themselves from western-style civilization.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Our nature is not human nature December 1, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This is an incredibly eye-opening book. A lot of the problems in modern life are those we attribute to the faults of human nature. This book shows us that it is the nature of our culture, not our inborn human nature, that is responsible for greed, selfishness, and jealousy. This book gives hope that we can see the importance of our connections to each other and what they really mean.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mirror to Ourselves March 15, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

What makes this book so profound for Western readers is that through the Ladakhi experience we not only see the identical disintegration being perpetrated on other peoples throughout the world, but we come to understand the roots of our own social malaise as well.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Living in a Question May 27, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This is an excellent book. It inspires questions about community and sustainability and culture which lead to further investigation. The author doesn't offer a solution, allowing the reader to live with his or her questions and find another several levels of questioning about who we are and how we live with one another and with our planet. It has the potential to open conversations about how we want to live and the choices we make about our economic, technological and social systems. It opens the reader to being altered by engaging in this conversation.