So Close To Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "I AM HAUNTED by a particular front page of Kuensel, Bhutan's only newspaper..." (more)
Key Phrases: memorial chorten, monastic walls, great lamas, Guru Rinpoche, Aum Rinzi, Pema Lingpa (more...)

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. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

The past and present of the kingdoms of the Himalayas is examined in a history of both Buddhist thought in the region and a culture under siege. Enjoy a first-person journey which brings an immediacy to the atmosphere of the region and exposes newcomers to the cultures and lives of the peoples. -- Midwest Book Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 297 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (May 16, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067941827X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679418276
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,031,050 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 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.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	ShriDurga (Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

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30 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars One side of the coin, December 16, 1999

By	Hari ([e-mail]) (Stockton, California, USA) - See all my reviews

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.