Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama [Paperback] Bard

In "The Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama," Mr.Norman states that he is a friend of the present Dalai Lama who, in fact, has written a laudatory preface to this book. This didn't prevent the author to be quite objective in his socio-cultural history of Tibet. It would seem that throughout the country's history, the Tibetan aristocracy (lay or religious) rode roughshod on its shoeless and impoverished peasants, while endlessly fighting among themselves and, when rarely united, against foreign overlords. This reality is at quite a distance from the Tibet imagined in certain Western circles. Longish and sometimes hard to follow, yet an excellent book and a must read for these interested in this mysterious and secretive country.