So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas [Paperback]

Barbara Crossette (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 1996

For 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Crossette visits the last remaining strongholds of Tantric Buddhism, examining the ways this culture has preserved its uniqueness amidst the homogenizing influences of contemporary geopolitics.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"There is no other full-length contemporary American account of this likable and largely unvisited kingdom....Crosette unravels the intricacies of Buddhism with considerable clarity."--The New York Times Book Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 25, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679743634
• ISBN-13: 978-0679743637
• Product Dimensions: 4.9 x 1.2 x 7.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A highly readable introduction to Bhutan, February 8, 2000

By 

saskatoonguy (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas (Paperback)

The title indicates the book is about Himalayan Buddhism. While small portions are devoted to the Buddhists of Kashmir, Nepal, and Sikkim, the majority of the book is about Bhutan, because it's the last remaining Buddhist monarchy of the Himalayan region. This is not a travel narrative; instead, the material is arranged by topic. It's comprehensive and pleasant to read. It's shortcoming is the author's unabashed bias in favor of the Bhutanese monarchy, despite its dubious record of human rights toward the Hindu minority. Crossette admits she received favored treatment from the king, and it shows. Likewise, she sides with the (now deposed) monarchy of Sikkim. The bias is so transparently obvious, I didn't feel I had been conned, but one expects greater balance from a correspondent of The New York Times.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not close enough, March 11, 2007

By 

Daiho - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas (Paperback)

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.

#

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a clear and thoughtful look at the Himalayan kingdoms, June 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas (Paperback)

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.