Ancient Futures is an intriguing title for a book about development and, indeed, this is an unusual book. Norberg-Hodge raises the possibility of learning from indigenous sustainable cultures by describing a journey through Ladakh in time. The narrative jumps from descriptions of Ladakhi life to the maturation of the author's own views about Ladakh over her 16 years of visiting and sharing with Ladakhi friends and mentors. Her style switches from eulogising the dignity of the noble savage and pointing fingers at thoughtless maldevelopment wrought by the bureaucratic powers that be, to an attempt at understanding the complexities of Ladakh's uneasy status at the periphery of the global economic network.
The book has three parts: Tradition, Change, and Learning from Ladakh. In the prologue, Norberg-Hodge denounces her Western heritage which she sees as rooted in an industrial culture that promulgates centralisation, technology, a money economy, and suffers the pressures and stresses that accompany it. In contrast, traditional Ladakh is depicted as "a society in which there is neither waste nor pollution, a society in which crime is virtually non-existent, communities are healthy and strong, and a teenage boy is never embarrased to be gentle and affectionate to his mother or grandmother."
The section begins with an account of Ladakh's unique landscape, high, remote and cold, where the pattern of life is dictated by seasons which alternate between scorching summer sun and winters in which rivers and land are frozen solid for eight months a year. The reader travels with Norberg-Hodge and her Ladakhi friends to field, village and monastery, ´catching glimpses of agricultural work and festivals. The key to survival in this harsh environment is thrift, not in the sense of miserliness but in the frugality that comes from the careful allocation of limited resources. Indeed, caring for the needs of others is an essential and integral part of traditional Ladakhi life.
Ladakhis come alive for the reader as a joyful people whose culture finds ample means of expressing well-being, vitality and high spirits. Men, women, the aged, andchildren live a stress-free existence, eat wholesome, local, organically-grown food, rely on the Tibetan system of medicine (as practiced by local doctors, known as amchi) and believe that conflicts should be avoided at all costs. Above all, the Ladakhi life is fashioned by its Buddhist religious heritage — there is no better way to please the Buddha than to please all sentient beings.