Ancient Futures

Let yourself be swept away to Ladakh, a region nestled high in the Himalayan plateau. It is a place like no other. The brightest sky makes snow-covered mountain peaks sparkle for miles. Below, scree tumbles down the mountain sides, infinite shades of ocher, into winding glacier-fed streams. The streams support a surrounding tapestry of vibrant green fields interspersed with stone houses, while on a nearby outcropping, a whitewashed monastery sits, overseeing the village, linking together land, people, mountains, and sky.

Ancient Futures is a lyrical and moving portrait of tradition and change in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet", as it was once known. The book is also an engaging critique of the global economy and a call for economic localization. When author, Helena Norberg-Hodge, first arrived in Ladakh in the 1970s, she found a pristine environment and a people who exhibited remarkable vitality and joy. Not long after, came economic growth and development and Norberg-Hodge watched how a whole range of problems—from polluted air and water to unemployment, religious conflict, eating disorders and youth suicide—began to appear for the first time.

Yet this is far from a story of despair. Social and environmental breakdown, Norberg-Hodge argues, is neither inevitable nor evolutionary, but the product of political and economic decisions—and those decisions can be changed. In a new Afterword for this audiobook, she contextualizes the current big-picture crises we face and the solutions each of us can be a part of. Norberg-Hodge also introduces us to a multitude of grassroots initiatives—a manifestation of a rapidly growing localization movement. She shows it is possible to reweave the local, the human-scale, and the place-based back into our lives, without terrible sacrifice, but rather to the benefit of all humans and nature. The story of Ladakh continues to serve as a source of inspiration to anyone interested in creating a better future.

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