This is the fascinating story of how a venerable Indian spiritual discipline turned into a £20 billion-a-year mainstay of the wellness industry. Tracing the steps along yoga’s winding path from the caves and forests of the sages to the gyms, hospitals and village halls of the modern West, it sets yoga in its global cultural context for the first time, and shows how the practice relates to important contemporary social currents. These include female empowerment, celebrity culture, the stress pandemic and the quest for authentic identity in the time of cultural crisis and widespread confusion. An engaging tale of scholars and scandal, science and spirit, wisdom and waywardness. This is the untold story of yoga, warts and all.
Alistair Shearer is a cultural historian specialising in the art and architecture of the Indian subcontinent, a former lecturer at The School of Oriental and African Studies at London University and a teacher of meditation and the psychology of yoga. His books have been translated into all major European languages, as well as Japanese and Hebrew, and his translation of the Yoga Sutras has remained in print for almost forty years Alistair is co-creator of an award winning retreat hotel (www.neeleshwarhermitage.com) on the coast of Malabar, in Kerala.
Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Published 23 January 2020
384 pages
ISBN 1787381927
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