Book Description
This gripping portrait of the rapidly evolving socioeconomic life of Ladakh - the Western Himalayan land known as "Little Tibet" - offers crucial lessons in sustainable development as its people attempt to balance growth and technology with cultural values. This account moves from the author's first visit in idyllic, nonindustrial Ladakh in 1974 to the present, showing the profound changes as the region was opened to foreign tourists, Western artifacts and technologies, and pressures for economic growth. These changes brought generational conflict, unemployment, inflation, environmental damage, and threats to the traditional way of life.
Appalled at the negative changes, the author helped establish the Ladakh Project (later renamed the International Society for Ecology and Culture) to seek sustainable solutions to preserve cultural values and environmental health, while facilitating the Ladakhis' hunger for modernization. This model undertaking effectively combines educational programs for all social levels with the design, demonstration, and promotion of appropriate technologies such as solar heating and small-scale hydro power.
This examination of how modernization changes the way people live and think challenges us to redefine our concepts of "development" and "progress." More than anything else, Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh stresses the need for the global community to find ways to carry traditional wisdom into the future.
Customer Reviews:
ANOTHER WAY.......2002-12-16
After reading this book, I suddenly realized the root problem of Western Civilization: We have no culture. Where there was once culture, we now have an expanding economic order threatening all life on the planet. Through its mechanism of growth and expansion, the global economy is conquering and converting life's diversity into an ecological and social monoculture of cash crops, Levis, soda pop and movie theatres. Perhaps moonscape would be a better word. Of course, it doesn't have to be this way. Our fast-paced, increasingly technological, capital-intensive, fossil fuel-centered, centralized, highly specialized, travel and commercial-oriented, often stressful society is by no means the end-all-be-all of human history. Murder, child abuse, drug abuse, theft, poverty, hunger, and every other problem that plagues the West are not products of human nature. The pathology of civilization is not natural or inevitable, and the Ladakhi are proof of this. Read this book and rediscover ancient, profound, life-affirmating alternatives to the modern humdrum. Discover another way of living, thinking and feeling. Important, necessary, engaging and masterfully written - this book was a treasure to read. Indeed, it was an awaking.
A MUST READ
Inspiring.......2002-10-10
This book has changed the way I looked at the issues of development, modernisation & morals. An amazing read, beautifully written and with great insights.
I have just returned from a trip to Ladakh and I could really relate to what Ms.Norberg talks about in the book.
Just a couple of side issues. It'd be good to know what exactly went wrong in Ladakh. Here are a people who for 2000 years had lived successfully by the rules of Buddhism. How & why did Buddhism fail these people in the face of global/western economic & cultural imperialism? Does the blame lie with Buddhism- it being too 'compassionate' and allowing a religion? Does the blame lie with the Ladakhis who probably were not as sincere Buddhists as they are made out to be?
After all if they really were such devout Buddhists, how come they fell to the greed that capitalism breeds?
Anyway, these are issues which could have been addressed in the book. Regardless, the book is excellent! A must read.
Wonderful and Depressing.......2001-03-15
Rarely have I felt more dispair about the direction of what we know as civilization as I felt halfway through this book. The Ladakh people are described as happy, healthy, and self-reliant. Suddenly, the "real world" happens to them, and they come to see themselves as poor, when before they had no need of money.
The authors do a nice job of weaving a story of hope at the end but I have concern for the future of these people. It helps me understand the decision the government of Bhutan has made to isolate themselves from western-style civilization.
Riches to Rags.......2000-10-25
The first half of *Ancient Futures* will delight and amaze you; the second half will break your heart.
In the 1970s, the Ladakhis of Little Tibet were a happy people. They had a sustainable traditional economy based on trade and cooperation - not money. One person's gain was not another person's loss. There was plenty of leisure, no hunger or poverty, very little sickness or disease, everyone was valued, there was no pollution and nothing was wasted. They got along fine with their Muslim neighbors and they kept their population stable through marriage customs based on land use. Almost every family had a celibate monk or nun. Buddhist monasteries and people had a mutually beneficial economic, social and spiritual relationship. Ladakhis are a naturally contemplative people with a great deal of spiritual awareness. "Schon chan" (one who angers easily) is about the only insult in the Ladakhi lnaguage. "Lack of pride is a virtue, for pride, born of ego, has nothing to do with self-respect among these Buddhist people." The author says that it took her two years of living among them to realize that the people were genuinely and joyfully HAPPY. Then the world beat a path to their door and all that changed - in fewer than two decades.
It's like a little piece of cultural time-lapse photography. What took western culture more than four centuries to do to the Native-Americans took only twenty years here. Ladakh has become a cautionary tale and a monument to western greed and stupidity.
Now there is poverty and unemployment, stress-related disease, women are devalued, the people are ashamed of their "backward" culture, there is little leisure but a great deal of pollution and waste as well as dispute between Muslims and Buddhists and the population had increased markedly. ("Interestingly, a number of Ladakhis have linked the rise of birth rates to the advent of modern democracy. "Power is a question of votes" is a current slogan, meaning that, in the modern sector, the larger your group, the greater your access to power. Competition for jobs and political representation within the new centralized structures is increasingly dividing Ladakhis.")
Chiildren are trained to become specialists in a technological rather than an ecological society. They no longer have time to learn the superb survival techniques of their families. Western culture is creating artificial scarsity and inducing competition.
Now I understand the mechanism better. A culture that has a heavily subsidized infrastructure invades a traditional self-sustaining culture and creates artificial "needs." So they go to the city to earn money which they never needed before, leaving their farms and women, who are immediately devalued because they're not wage earners. The people are no longer planting, irrigating, spinning wool, gathering seeds, harvesting, playing music and singing and telling stories, having seasonal parties, marriage parties or funeral watches - together.
Time has become a commodity. It has become uneconomical to grow one's own food, make one's own clothes and build one's own house. You have to pay your neighbors for the work that the whole community used to do for free.
The men are in the cities earning money and the women are producing tourist commodities with the wool they used to spin for their own use and the food they used to grow for their own families. Now they grow cash crops for strangers so they can make enough money to buy polyester clothes and walkmans and jeans for their kids and food grown hundreds of miles away and fuel trucked in from afar.
The Yak and the Dzo, uniquely suited for high altitudes of Ladakh gave rich milk but not as much as western cattle. So what did the conquering culture do? They imported cattle that can't make it at such altitudes, so more land has to be relegated to planting crops to feed the cattle, thereby upsetting the balance. And they call this progress.
Why can't we just leave people alone - especially when they're doing FINE without us?
"When one-third of the world's population consumes two-thirds of the world's resources," says Norberg-Hodge, "and then in effect turns around and tells the others to do as they do, it is little short of a hoax. Development is all too often a euphemism for exploitation, a new colonialism."
All this would be a dismal tragedy comparable to Columbus's complete genocide of the Tainos if not for a "counter development" movement generated in part by this author. Since the Ladakhis can't go back, they can at least go forward. Instead of importing expensive fossil fuels (previously they had used yak dung and kept warm) they can have solar houses and greenhouses, which have worked very well and given them one benefit that they have previously not had. That's something. Information is another plus. The people are being made aware that westerners pay more for whole grains, organic vegetables, pure water, natural fibers, and natural building materials - things these people have had for a thousand years without money. This is something so-called third-world people are generally not told about.
Once in a while a book comes along that changes one's perspective forever. *Ancient Futures* is such a book. I haven't been the same since.
One of the reviewers on this site said he ended up buy copies for his friends. So have I. This book is a must-read for every person who is concerned about the preservation of our planet and our species.
pamhan99@aol.com
Intimate view of one society gives insights on our own.......2000-05-02
How does life in a non-industrial society compare to life in our own? In which society are people happier? If life in non-industrial societies compares favorably to life in our own, then why are the barrios of the third world filling up with migrants from remote villages? This book provides surprising insights into these questions. It also provokes reflections on our own society and its influence on the rest of the world. After reading a used copy I picked up for free, I bought seven copies of this book for friends and family!
Average customer rating:
- excelent overview of "miracles" in Tibetan Buddhism
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Blessing Power of the Buddhas: Sacred Objects, Secret Lands
Norma Levine
Manufacturer: Element Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1852303050 |
Customer Reviews:
excelent overview of "miracles" in Tibetan Buddhism.......1999-11-02
Norma Levine's close association with Tai Situ, Rinpoche, one of the highest Tibetan lamas, is used to highlight her examination of the phenomena of ringsel (spontaneously appearing relics), rangjung ("self arisen" rock and bone artifacts), beyul- the "hidden lands" of refuge, the career of Padmasambhava, Tibet's great culture hero, and ter, the teachings hid by Padmasambhava in rock or in the mindstreams of his disciples. Levine takes care to handle these topics with dignified sensitivity, helping us to view these "miracles" as the physical manifestations of blessing/inspiration.
Book Description
Now considered a classic among readers interested in Tibetan Buddhism and pilgrimages of the spirit of all kinds, A Journey in Ladakh is Andrew Harvey's spiritual travelogue of his arduous journey to one of the most remote parts of the world--the highest, least populated region in India, cut off by snow for six months each year. Buddhists have meditated in the mountains of Ladakh since three centuries before Christ, and it is there that the purest form of Tibetan Buddhism is still practiced today.
Customer Reviews:
some good stuff here..........2006-01-20
As far as philosophy goes this book is definitely worth the read. There are some beautiful and quite moving passages about the nature of our collective struggle to be happy in a world of pain, the beauty of a discipline such as Tibetan Buddhism, and the quite common search for an understanding of it all.
I particularly liked the part on page 104 where he writes "It takes a great courage when you are suffering to see beyond your suffering to the clear relations between things, to the laws that cause and govern your suffering; it takes great courage to be ruthless with one's griefs."
That being said, I don't think this is a perfect book. There were several things that I found increasingly troubling as I read. One was the issue of language. Harvey mentions periodically that this or that character spoke good English, but there is no cogent explanation of just how communications between all of these divergent characters worked. I found it very hard to believe that all these people spoke english as well as they appear to in the book. In fact, everyone in the book spoke english more fluently than most people I know, i.e. native english speakers. Which brings me to my second issue. Harvey appears in the book to have the ability to travel to a very foreign culture and almost instantaneously forge deep and intensely personal bonds with everyone he meets. I'm not saying this is impossible. Just unlikely. It's almost never happened to me even in my own culture. That could be because I'm a curmudgeonly and cynical guy, granted. But still it didn't seem very likely to me. I question how much of the dialogue was accurate and how much was the result of Harvey's idealized memories of his journey. It reminded me, unfortunately, of "Mutant Message Down Under", though nowhere NEAR as bad, I hasten to add. That book was dreadful. At least the first half was; that's as far as I got. Harvey's book is infinitely better, but does have a hint of the same idealization of the "spiritual, untarnished, third world wise man" in it. I've met so many people who have visited Nepal and surrounding areas who say the same thing that I guess there must be an element of truth to it. It just seems a bit simplistic.
The last thing that bugged me was how the Rinpoche was said to be so dedicated to his people that he was always exhausted from helping them, yet seemed to have all the time in the world for the author. What's so special about him? I don't know, maybe he's a tulku or something. The Rinpoche would know better than me. It just seemed to fit into a cultural pattern that I've seen too many times.
For a refreshingly different account you should read 'Amazon Beaming' by Petru Popescu, about a guy who gets stranded in the Amazon with the Mayoruna tribe. The only way he makes it with these people, the only role that's available to him in their culture, is that of a total buffoon who can't do anything for himself. Which was accurate, of course, within their context. If Harvey's experience in Ladakh was different, isn't that in itself a symptom of the Westernization which he and everyone else decries? In a culture totally unfamiliar with Western ways, someone whose life consisted of computers, cars, working for money, investing money, and travelling to distant lands on airplanes for no particular reason, would seem pretty bizarre. What role would there be for us if we hadn't created one?
But I digress.
It didn't help any to search Andrew Harvey on the Internet and discover that he's now offering tours of South India at a cost of $3700.00 for two weeks (not including airfare). Sure, I'm a naysayer and a devil's advocate, but that's my burden, not yours.
Read this book and enjoy the good parts. I definitely enjoyed it, I just thought I should mention some reservations in order to counter the all too common, five star, "ooh, unbelievable, changed my life" reviews which are a little too common these days, like standing ovations for non-spectacular performances. Well, what can you do? We live in a world where The Celestine Prophecies has sold 10,000,000,000,000 copies. Have you read that? DON'T!
ps - I really dig my "real name" attribution. That means I'm a source you can trust. I feel almost like a corporation.
A Classic "Journey to the East".......2003-03-11
Other reviewers have given a synopsis of the book, so I won't repeat it here. Also, I read an old edition without the Afterword, so didn't have to read the author's repudiation of his youth.
I thoroughly enjoyed this classic "Journey to the East" travelogue. Harvey observes keely and writes from the heart. This book is for anyone who has travelled and fallen in love with a foreign culture, or who has travelled and hoped to find a new way of being.
Beautiful,pointed marred by a biting afterward.......2000-10-11
Andrew Harvey is an excellent writer.his writings,even on esoterica,have a light touch, making them accessible to those of us without a first at Oxford. This book is a well written decrpitive early gem by Mr. Harvey.Ladakh is [was?]the last pristine place of tibetan buddhism left on the planet. Mr Harvey goes in search of it,and ,of course, himself. The results are surprising, and very well done. The early parts of the book deal with the travel,and it occasionally borders on poetry.The meat of the book,as it were,is Mr. Harvey's encounter with a Tibetan Rinpoche,and the subsequent effect on his life.His conversations with the rinpoche,juxtaposed with his nights drinking chang[the local brew]in a Ladakhan saloon, are wonderful, and make the text much more enjoyable, and less self inflating. After all of this, Mr. Harvey writes an afterward 20 years later[this is a reprint]and he seems to have been ahving a bad day.After stopping just short of accusing the dalai lama of homophobia[traced to some of The Dalai lamas remarks made in San Francisco, I think,}he pounds the tibetan exile community,brings up the patrichial setup of traditional tibetan life[from a feminist perspective],and generally gets more heated in 3 pages than the previous 220+. Odd way to end a lovely book.
A Spiritual Journey.......2000-08-30
After being advised to visit Ladakh by a number of people, traveller & writer Andrew Harvey finally arrives in the remote Himalayan region. His journey is more of a spiritual quest & is further propelled by his meeting of a Tibetan Rinpoche. He finds himself torn between his rational Western ego which is telling him that this Tibetan Rinpoche could be a fraud & giving up his former life to stay in Ladakh & immerse himself in Tibetan Buddhism.
Like any Westerner who visits such a remote region, he laments over the encroachment of the West to an ancient culture & wonders what will happen to Ladakh in the future. Wishing that he could help conserve Ladakh's unique identity, his hope is that this book will show an honest account of Ladakh, it's people & it's culture.
A brilliant book for anyone travelling on their spiritual journey.
Buddism, spiritual discovery and a travel log - in one book........2000-08-01
I read this unique book while trekking through Ladakh, India - the last place where you can see something of what Tibet must have been like before the Chinese invaded. Ladakh is the highest, most remote, most sparsely populated region in India, located on the China - Indian border in what is deemed "disputed territory." Tourists were banned until 1972, and entry into this region requires a special permit.
A Journey to Ladakh is written by a professed "half - Buddhist". It is foremost a book about spiritual discovery, and secondly a travel log on one of the world's most outback religious regions. Andrew Harvey, born in southern India and educated at Oxford, England, read all he could on different Buddhist traditions but decided to leave Oxford and return to India for one year to study Buddhism in its original form. This ultimately lead him to Ladakh, one of the last places on earth "where a Tibetan Buddhist society can be experienced".
The first part of the book is Harvey's travel journal through Ladakh. A group of my fellow sojourners plowed through the first hundred pages and finally put the book down. Comments such as "I lost interest" and "dull" were mentioned, however the book's value and true worth happens in the second half, when Harvey meets the Rinpoche ("master", "realized soul", "Buddha"). It is here, when Harvey records the wisdom of the Rinpoche, that the text shines, providing universal truths about life and its spiritual component. The tenants of Buddhist philosophy can be gleaned through Harvey's discourses with the Rinpoche ("There are no Gods in Buddhism," "There is only Emptiness - Nothingness," "To be freed from a false perception of Self is the end of Buddhism,".), but it is in the practical day to day life teachings that make this book worth reading.
The journey to Ladakh is a journey to discover the laws of the spirit, and the relationship of the spirit to those laws. What Harvey has done for you in this book is to start you on a journey . . . a journey that explores the very center of being - or in Buddhist terms the journey into nothingness. Recommended
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- Sensitive Photography
- Portraits
- West looks East
- A Window On A World Away
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A World Away
Larry Snider
Manufacturer: Pegasus Publishing Company
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ASIN: 0970938802 |
Book Description
A photography book of portraits done over a 10 year period on trips through China, Tibet, Bhutan and Ladakh. There is an introduction to the book by Sylvia Wolf, the Sandra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Customer Reviews:
Sensitive Photography.......2001-10-16
Larry Snider's book is filled with beautiful, sensitive photographs. I have seen Snider's works before, and it is a great pleasure to be able to "visit" them as often as I like by simply owning this volume.
Portraits.......2001-08-22
For anyone who loves the art of photography and portraiture, adventure travel, or remote and ancient cultures, this book is a treasure. It contains haunting, sublime portraits of people of China, Tibet, Bhutan, and Ladakh: laughing children, wise elders, rakish young men, monks, families, laborers, and women, old and young, at work or dressed in ceremonial finery. The portraits were not taken in a studio, and the architecture of their settings -- monasteries, villages, shops, and streets -- are as intriguing as the subjects themselves.
The poignancy and beauty of these portraits lies not only in their technical and artistic excellence, but also in their deft blending of contrasts: the exotic and the familiar, the ancient and the modern, the distinctly Asian, and the rare Western or perhaps global artifacts of our modern culture.
A World Away merits one's attention again and again, as the portraits yield evocative details and depth of meaning with each viewing. This collection is a compassionate and eloquent account of the people encountered during the artist's Asian travels. It would make an elegant gift, and, since the book's impact is visual rather than verbal, the recipient need not speak English to enjoy it.
West looks East.......2001-08-03
A thoughtfully engaging and beautifully produced monograph which details the artist's travels thoughout Asia. It is no wonder the artist's work is in so many musuems and has been the subject of numerous exhibits.
A Window On A World Away.......2001-07-30
A World Away is a stunning collection of portraits that displays Snider's insight into the ancient cultures of his subjects as well as his technical excellence. Through these beautiful black and white photographs, the reader is transported to the remotest corners of Asia to glimpse lives virtually untouched by Western culture. Snider reveals the simple dignity and endurance of these people, and his book offers a rare window on their world.
Average customer rating:
- Though data kinds of out-of-date
- Ambitious & Successful
- Ambitious & Successful
- Informative but limited for climbing, biking...
- So good I bought it twice!
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Mapping the Tibetan World
Manufacturer: Kotan Publishing
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Similar Items:
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Lonely Planet Tibet
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Tibet (Footprint Travel Guides)
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Trekking in Tibet: A Traveler's Guide
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Tibetan Phrasebook (Lonely Planet)
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Himalaya Nelles Map: Tibet Kashmir Nepal Sikim Bhutan (Nelles Maps)
ASIN: 0970171609 |
Book Description
This extraordinary budget travel guide to the Tibetan world comes with over 280 tried and tested maps covering the entire region.Get there and get around: Hundreds of pages of travel information. Plus gateway cities: New Delhi, Calcutta, Chengdu, Kunming, Kathmandu and Pokhara.Keep to your budget: Hotel tariffs, tour and trekking costs, permit and visa charges.Pack everything in: Cultural, historical and religious explanations, festival dates, sights & more...
Customer Reviews:
Though data kinds of out-of-date.......2007-02-18
You must have for its massive information and detail map which inculding every need of buddhism pilgrims (It's kind of rare on popular market), but for the traveling data quite out of date, especially for Tibet's situation. (I am not sure for rest of India, Nepal and Bhutan.... cause I didn't use this book as other areas.)
Ambitious & Successful.......2002-09-20
'Mapping the Tibetan World' is a very ambitious project, and one that succeeds brilliantly.
The once-great Tibetan world, though based on common culture and language, has splintered over the centuries into slabs attached to China, India and Nepal--with Bhutan the sole independent nation remaining. This book reassembles the complex jigsaw into a cohesive whole again, making it the perfect guidebook for travellers keen on visiting overlapping regions of the Tibetan plateau on a single trip.
The marvel is how all the complex data is compressed into 424 pages. The maps are highly detailed and many are not found in other sources: among them are excellent trekking maps.
If you want to explore the Tibetan sphere of influence, this is the book.
Michael Buckley, travel writer, author of Heartlands: Travels in the Tibetan World and the Tibet Travel Adventure Guide
Ambitious & Successful.......2002-09-20
'Mapping the Tibetan World' is a very ambitious project, and one that succeeds brilliantly.
The once-great Tibetan world, though based on common culture and language, has splintered over the centuries into slabs attached to China, India and Nepal--with Bhutan the sole independent nation remaining. This book reassembles the complex jigsaw into a cohesive whole again, making it the perfect guidebook for travellers keen on visiting overlapping regions of the Tibetan plateau on a single trip.
The marvel is how all the complex data is compressed into 424 pages. The maps are highly detailed and many are not found in other sources: among them are excellent trekking maps.
If you want to explore the Tibetan sphere of influence, this is the book.
Michael Buckley, travel writer, author of Heartlands: Travels in the Tibetan World and the Tibet Travel Adventure Guide
Informative but limited for climbing, biking..........2002-06-13
If one is not interested in purely religious destinations, another book might be in order.
This book is concerned only with religious destinations in Tibet.
Mountain climbers, trekkers, or bikers concerned perhaps with more terrestrial matters would be better served by a book with mile markers, better maps, and more information on lodging.
I was in Tibet in March of 2002 climbing Mt. Nojin Kansa. I had this book; another guy had a book I won't bother to name. I constantly referred to the other book for mile markers, pass altitudes, international phone providers, etc.
This book will get thee to a nunnery in short order. It will not provide the best maps or travel details.
So good I bought it twice!.......2001-11-26
At first glance, I thought this guide would be difficult to use as I was so used to the layout of Lonely Planet. However, I quickly adapted to it and found it very informative and reasonably up to date. Most useful was the section on Buddhism when visiting the extraordinary temples in Tibet, as well as advice on routes to take and how to get places. Unfortunately, after a vehicle accident just outside of Lhasa, my book went missing somewhere between the side of the road and the hospital bed (don't let that put you off visiting this remarkable country!). So I was overjoyed when I discovered the guide again in Kathmandu, and bought another copy so I could continue to use it!
Book Description
Practical trekking guide to the Himalayan region of Ladakh, northwest India. Includes 75 detailed walking maps plus information on getting to Ladakh and guides to Leh, Manali, and Delhi.
Customer Reviews:
Armchair traveler.......2007-01-04
This is in fact the only detailed account, well illustrated, for a traveler to Ladakh (do you know where is it?), a small Buddhist-Islam country which still preserves many of the traditions already spoiled in Nepal & Sikkim.
For a trekker, this is a precious vade mecum. For a learner, Charlie Loram is a most knowledgeable teacher on the subject.
This book is worth your time and money.
And, thank you Charlie for a superb book!
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Peace and Conflict in Ladakh: The Construction of a Fragile Web of Order (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library)
Fernanda Pirie
Manufacturer: Brill Academic Publishers
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 9004155961 |
Book Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1841 edition by John Murray, London.
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Living Fabric: Weaving Among The Nomads Of Ladakh Himalaya
Monisha Ahmed
Manufacturer: Weatherhill
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ASIN: 0834805219
Release Date: 2003-01-01 |
Book Description
This is the first study of the tradition of weaving among the nomadic pastoralists of Rupshu, in eastern Ladakh. Weaving touches all aspects of life in Rupshu, where both women and men weave, each on a different type of loom. Local narrative states that the craft of weaving was bestowed upon Rupshu by the gods, and thus all feats related to it have a close connection to the sublime. This book documents and analyses the ways in which fibers, weaving, and textiles are symbolized, constructed, and experienced in Rupshu where themes such as gender, kinship, hierarchical and spatial relations find ready expression through the design and making of cloth. Through her work the author traces the relationship between livestock, weaving, social and symbolic structures in order to understand the multitude of contexts within which wool-oriented activities exist. Richly illustrated, this book will appeal to those with an interest in textiles, nomads, gender studies, and the Himalaya.
Book Description
This is the first book to combine essays on the history and ongoing production of art in Ladakh and to recognize both Buddhist and Islamic contributions to the cultural environment. Drawing on recent research in the region, Ladakh: Cultu re at the Crossroads covers subjects ranging from the analysis of key sites and prominent
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