The Buddha and Dr. F'Uhrer: An Archaeological Scandal

Politics & Social Sciences

CHARLES ALLEN

Archaeology

Penguin books.India

Charles Allen captures the vanished world of British Colonial Africa in the recollections of the pioneering men and women who lived and worked there.

Tales from the dark continent

History

Europe

A. Deutsch

The idea of a hidden refuge, a paradise far from the stresses of modern life, has universal appeal. In 1932 the writer James Hilton coined the word 'Shangri-La' to describe such a place, when he gave that name to a hidden valley in the Himalayas in his novel LOST HORIZON. In THE SEARCH FOR SHANGRI-LA acclaimed traveller and writer Charles Allen explores the myth behind the story. He tracks down the sources that Hilton drew upon in writing his popular romance, and then sets out to discover what lies behind the legend that inspired him. In the course of a lively and amusing account of his four journeys into Tibet, Allen also gives us a controversial new reading of the country's early history, shattering our notions of Tibet as a Buddhist paradise and restoring the mysterious pre-Buddhist religion of Bon to its rightful place in Tibetan culture. He also locates the lost kingdom of Shang-shung and, in doing so, the original Shangri-La itself: in an astounding gorge beyond the Himalayas, full of extraordinary ruins.

The Search for Shangri-La, A Journey Into Tibetan History

Religion & Spirituality

Little,Brown & Company

The brutal assasination of Commissioner Frederick Mackeson on British India's North-West Frontier in 1853 was a bloody and public declaration of a conflict that was to stretch well into the next one hundred and fifty years. The Wahhabi tribe, extreme Islamist fundamentalists, set out to restore purity to their faith by declaring violent jihad on all who opposed them. Their history has long been forgotten and yet their vicious brand of political ideology lives on. The Wahhabi deeply influenced not only the formation of modern Saudi Arabia, but Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Their teachings educate orphan boys in Afghanistan and press rifles into their hands, for the sake of jihad. The parallels between this pivotal terrorist network and our post-9/11 political climate are staggering. Charles Allen sheds lights on the historical roots of modern terrorism and shows how this dangerous nineteenth-century theology lives on today.

God's Terrorists

Little,Brown

by Charles Allen. This is a great book if you want to know the DETAILED HISTORY of the search for the great holy mountain where four great rivers have their source. It progresses from the early 1600s to the early 1900s, from the Jesuit priest Father Antonio de Andrade to the famous Swedish explorer Sven Hedin.

Mountain In Tibet

Travel

Asia

Futura

Indias lost emperor ashoka maurya has a special place in history in his quest to govern india by moral force alone he turned buddhism from a minor sect into a world religion, and set up a new yardstick for government but ashokas bold experiment ended in tragedy and he was forgotten for almost two thousand yearsin this beautifully written, multi-layered journey charles allen describes how fragments of the ashokan story were gradually discovered, pieced together by a variety of british orientalists: antiquarians, archaeologists and epigraphists in doing so, they did much to recover indias ancient history itself the lost emperor tells the story of the man who was arguably the greatest ruler india has ever known

Ashoka

ABACUS +

Portrays the way of life of the royalty of the states of India before the country's independence

Lives of the Indian Princes

Sharada Dwivedi

Crown Publishers, Inc.

A Mountain in Tibet: The Search for Mount Kailas and the Sources of the Great Rivers of Asia

Reference

Time Warner Paperbacks*

In December 1903 a British army marched over the Himalayas to counter a non-existent Russian threat and was confronted by a medieval Tibetan army ordered to stop it by non-violent means. It was a clash between the mightiest political power in the world and the weakest: a land of mystery locked behind the most formidable natural barriers on earth and governed by a reincarnate lama. Leading what was supposed to be a peaceful political mission was the charismatic Francis Younghusband. At his side, a group of young officers who were as eager as he to be the first Europeans in almost a century to reach Lhasa: to gaze, as one of their number put it, 'with awe upon the temples and palaces of the long-sealed Forbidden City'. But commanding the army escort was an officer determined to do things by the book: General James Macdonald, known to his troops as 'Retiring Mac'. The result was conflict at every level, with a tragic outcome that both enthralled and shocked the outside world. Drawing on diaries, letters and unpublished first-hand accounts, Charles Allen overturns this accepted view, presenting the real story of what became known to history as the Younghusband Mission.In doing so, he reveals not only the true character of one of Britain's great imperial heroes but also the calamitous outcome for the Tibetan people of Britain's last attempt at empire-building.

Duel in the Snows : The True Story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa

London: John Murray, 2004

Thunder and Lightning

Warner Futura

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Books by CHARLES ALLEN