: the Oral Biography Hardcover - 2005

Justin Trudeau, educator, son of the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau [1919-2000, prime minister of Canada, 1968-1979; 1980-1984] I have done a lot of reading on him, trying to understand him.

The Dalai Lama is the most beloved spiritual and political leader of our time. For believers and nonbelievers alike, this gentle monk with the winsome smile and laughing eyes embodies the spirit of compassion, love, and nonviolent resistance to tyranny. In addition to millions of ordinary people around the globe, Dalai Lama fans and serious devotees include statesmen, scientists, religious leaders (including several rabbis and a former archbishop of Canterbury), and Hollywood celebrities, such as Richard Gere, Goldie Hawn, and Martin Scorcese. Also among his admirers are the members of the Nobel Committee, who, in 1989, awarded the tireless crusader for human rights the Nobel Peace Prize.

What is the source of the Dalai Lama's tremendous international appeal and to what extent does the public image reflect the private man? Is he just a humble monk with a simple message of love and compassion, or is he a canny political operator with a keen sense of modern public relations techniques? Behind the public image of the dogged defender of human rights, does there lurk a thwarted potentate who dreams of reclaiming his throne as his Chinese critics contend?

In His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Deborah and Gerald Strober take a unique approach to answering these and other questions. Drawing upon interviews with more than fifty individuals, including the Dalai Lama's associates and followers, as well as politicians, clerics, and critics, they present to us an uncommonly intimate portrait of His Holiness. With only minimal editorial interruption, the Strobers allow these women and men to tell their stories and share their often surprising insights into the Dalai Lama's life and personality--from his childlike sense of fun to his insatiable curiosity about the latest developments in physics and astronomy, from the sound of his laugh to the integrity of his spiritual and ethical thinking. Like a series of candid snapshots that gradually coalesce into a coherent image of a man in all of his complexity, these brief encounters evoke the true character of the Dalai Lama and the effect he has on all who meet him.

At the same time, this book chronicles His Holiness's incredible life story, beginning in 1935 in the remote village of Taktser where the three-year-old peasant, Lhamo Dhondrub, was identified as the incarnation of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. From there they trace each step of his journey, from his early enthronement and religious training in Lhasa; his first momentous encounters with Westerners--especially Austrian mountain climber, Heinrich Harrer, of Seven Years in Tibet fame--in the 1940s; his flight from Chinese oppression and the establishment of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in 1950; through his dramatic transformation, in the 1980s and '90s--from a cloistered holy man to a global cultural icon.

Offering a uniquely comprehensive and balanced portrait of one of the most compelling public figures of our time, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is must-reading for Dalai Lama fans and devotees of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as students of modern culture.