Tibet and the XIV Dalai Lama
6-weeks | Registration closed 9/10/2025
This course, based on my book The Last Dalai Lama, a Biography, presents a portrait of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, the spiritual and secular leader of the Tibetan people for over three-quarters of a century. The Dalai Lama has just celebrated his 90th birthday. His remarkable leadership, through the application of Buddhist principles, has kept his country united in the face of mass murder, wholesale destruction of monasteries, burning of ancient religious texts, despoiling of a stunning landscape by mining of Tibet’s natural resources, impeding the flow of most of Asia’s major waterways (which begin in Tibet), and, most recently, the wholesale removal of Tibetan children from their homes to be educated elsewhere -- but only in the Chinese language.
The class covers the story of his discovery in eastern Tibet, his installation as Dalai Lama in 1950, his self-imposed exile in India in 1959 in the face of armed invasion by the Chinese Communists, and his life up to the present day. In researching the book, I spent many hours with His Holiness at his home in Dharamsala. I also met with members of his family and with many Tibetan refugees.
Michael Goodman
Michael Harris Goodman received a Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham in England, where he was a lecturer in history; an M.A. from New York University; and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. He has travelled extensively through India, Nepal, and Switzerland interviewing the Dalai Lama, his family, and many other exiles from Tibet, including the Dalai Lama’s two monastic tutors, officials from his pre- and post-exile government, monks, traders, farmers, nomads, herdsmen, and guerrilla fighters.