«

This book is a fruitful intellectual effort that challenges the stereotypical narration of protests... The end notes are extremely illuminative. The strength of the work is the rigor shown by the author in the blending of religious studies, history, social and cultural anthropology, and interviews with people, both members of the FPMT and farmers.

»

H- Net (H-Diplo)

«

Dr. Falcone offers compelling insights into the concepts of temporality and futurity, grassroots activism in the face of a transnational organization, and the ethics of engaged anthropological practice.

»

New Books in Anthropology

«

The book opens the eyes of the readers as blind devotion blocks the critical mind and compassion, and can be lost in unrealistic, pink thinking. I highly reccomend it.

»

Buddhismus Aktuell

«

Falcone draws on fieldwork and her own personal engagement with the resistance to describe the struggle over the creation of what would have been the largest-ever Buddha image.

»

Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

«

Falcone's advocacy does not compromise the rigor or balance of her analysis. She draws on more than a decade of site observation and personal interviews to produce nuanced ethnographies of the various groups as they struggle with the unintended consequences of Buddhism's globalization.... It will be a valuable resource for serious scholars of contemporary Buddhism and for those studying Buddhism and anthropology.

»

Choice

«

As the title of this absorbing book Battling the Buddha of Love: A Cultural Biography of the Greatest Statue Never Built aptly describes, this lucid ethnography by Jessica Falcone explores the transnational life of a globalizing Tibetan Buddhist organization.

»

Reading Religion