For over three decades, travel writer Pico Iyer has been a friend to the Dalai Lama, and through years of intimate conversations, he has come to know him in a way that few can claim. Here he paints an unprecedented portrait of one of the most singular figures of our time, explaining the Dalai Lama's work and ideas about politics, science, and religion. While the Dalai Lama is revered as a holy man and a living link to a remote past, Iyer's "trenchant, impassioned look at a singular life" (NYTBR) reveals him to also be a pragmatic champion of globalism and technology.