Product Description

Based entirely on unpublished primary sources, Tsering Shakya's groundbreaking history of modern Tibet shatters the popular conception of the country as an isolated Shangri--la unaffected by broader international developments. Shakya gives a balanced, blow-by-blow account of Tibet's ongoing struggle to maintain its independence and safeguard its cultural identity while being sandwiched between the heavyweights of Asian geopolitics: Britain, India, China, and the United States.

With thorough documentation, Shakya details the Chinese depredations of Tibet, and reveals the failures of the Tibetan leadership's divided strategies. Rising above the simplistic dualism so often found in accounts of Tibet's contested recent history, The Dragon in the Land of Snows lucidly depicts the tragedy that has befallen Tibet and identifies the conflicting forces that continue to shape the aspirations of the Tibetan people today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #303987 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-01
• Released on: 2000-10-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140196153
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Long isolated by virtue of its remoteness and its government's suspicion of outsiders, Tibet was drawn a century ago into an uneasy alliance with Great Britain. In the bargain, the British gained a buffer state between its Indian colonies and China, while the Tibetans gained some measure of protection against Chinese encroachment. With the end in 1947 of British rule in India, Tibet was left defenseless, and China lost no time in claiming Tibet as its own, invading the mountainous kingdom in 1949. China has ruled Tibet as a colony ever since, settling ever larger numbers of ethnic Chinese there in order to establish a majority over the original occupants.

Thanks to the decades-long efforts of the exiled Dalai Lama, the Tibetan demand for sovereignty is well known throughout the world today. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the complex political relationships that obtain between China and Tibet, and between both countries and the rest of the world, now have a thoroughly documented, accessible guide in Tsering Shakya's Dragon in the Land of Snows. Though far from nonpartisan--Shakya, too, pleads the cause of Tibetan independence--the book covers much unfamiliar ground while attempting to understand China's persistent claims of rule. China is unlikely to give up Tibet willingly, he concludes, for to do so would entail loss of face for the nationalists who now rule in Beijing.

No other book offers as comprehensive a picture of modern Tibetan history, and Shakya's work contributes much to the debate over that sad nation's future. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
A valuable scholarly history of modern Tibet that passes an unflattering judgment on the role of the West, this study earned critical praise in England, where it was first published. Shakya, a research fellow at London University, fled his native Tibet with his family amid the horrors of China's Cultural Revolution in 1967. Remarkably, his tone is objective as he seeks to understand and present the Chinese viewpointAthat Tibet has always been part of the Chinese empire and that Maoism has ushered a backward feudalistic society into the 20th centuryAeven as he forcefully refutes it. Using Tibetan-language and Chinese sources, oral records of Tibetan leaders and British, U.S. and Indian government documents, Shakya compellingly explains what has happened to Tibet since the Chinese military invasion of 1950. Almost the entire Tibetan army, plus many activists, monks and students, were arrested and dispatched to labor camps in Tibet and in China. Tibet's monasteries and temples were destroyed or pillaged by China's Red Guards. All expressions of dissent and of loyalty to the exiled Dalai Lama have been punished. As part of its policy of total assimilation aimed at the annihilation of Tibetan culture, Beijing has encouraged tens of thousands of Chinese to settle in Tibet. Shakya's quietly devastating chronicle faults the U.S. and Britain for making the question of human rights subservient to the West's desire for better relations with China. Thorough and fair, Shakya sheds light on a country whose complex reality is often ignored even by the most well-intentioned advocates of the Tibetan cause in the West. Photos. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Shakya, a Tibetan national and scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, has assembled a detailed, scholarly, and objective history of Tibet from the 1940s to 1990s. Comfortable examining both the local and international aspects of this wrenching period, he gives new insights in the diplomatic arena, in particular where Tibet intersected with the UN and India. CIA involvement in Tibetan independence forms an interesting sidelight. One gains a well-rounded picture of the institutional, socioeconomic, demographic, cultural, and, of course, religious implications of Tibet's "return to the motherland" (China). Though he consulted no Chinese-language materials, his lengthy bibliography is rich in both English and Tibetan resources, including oral accounts. And while the chronology is at times presented in ponderous detail, one is left firmly appreciative of the author's balanced view of the politically and emotionally charged issues surrounding modern Tibet. Recommended for public and academic libraries, especially those with Asian studies collections.AD.E. Perushek, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Fine information, awful writing
The thoroughness of this history cannot be doubted. It is a fully detailed history of China's role in modern Tibet. On this point I must agree with all other reviewers. But someone has to point out that this book is horribly written and horribly edited. Names appear with variant spellings-even on the same page. Sentences begin & go no where. Poor writing & editing make this book a difficult read, particularly for non-scholars who may not be fully familiar with names and events. This book does no credit to an important university press in this regard.

an important contribution
Tsering Shakya's book is dispassionate and comprehensive. Instead of simply rehashing and remixing previously published work, it adds to existing accounts by incorporating interviews with first-hand witnesses among the Tibetan exile community (he apparently has not interviewed any Chinese witnesses, which is unfortunate but understandable). Although I have read widely on this subject before, I found much here that's new and not a little that's surprising. I'm sure Tsering Shakya is taking a lot of flack for writing this book. I hope he perseveres, because I believe that the cause of peace is best served by unbiased and unflinching accounts such as this one.

Must reading for those interested in Tibet.
This is the first serious attempt to examine the history of Sino-Tibetan relations from 1949 to the present. Before I read it, I had been told that it had upset people on both sides. Now I can see why. It pulls no punches, panders no propaganda, and plays no favorites. Though obviously sympathetic to the plight of the Tibetan people and unsparing in its criticism of Chinese rule, it peels back the layers of myth superimposed by both Chinese and Tibetan exiles to show the mistakes and foolishness on both sides. Shakya's explanation of the recent Panchen Lama imbroglio is clear and accurate. Overall, "must" reading for anyone seriously interested in the Tibet issue and Sino-Tibetan relations.