Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh - Softcover

Norberg-Hodge, Helena

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0871566435 ISBN 13: 9780871566430

Publisher: Sierra Club Books, 1992

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

A linguist by training, Helena Norberg-Hodge was the first Westerner in modern times to master the Ladakhi language. For the last seventeen years, she has spent half of every year in Ladakhi, working with the Ladakhi people to protect their culture and environment from the effects of rapid modernization. For this work, Ms. Norberg-Hodge was awarded the 1986 Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. She is currently Director of the Ladakhi Project, which she founded in 1978, and its parent organization, the International Society for Ecology. and Culture.

From the Back Cover

"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)

Edition details

• Publisher: Sierra Club Books
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0871566435
• ISBN 13: 9780871566430
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 238