Tibet

Tibet PDF Author: Sam van Schaik
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300154046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Presents a comprehensive history of the country, from its beginnings in the seventh century, to its rise as a Buddhist empire in medieval times, to its conquest by China in 1950, and subsequent rule by the Chinese.

Tibet

Tibet PDF Author: Sam van Schaik
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300154046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Get Book

Book Description
Presents a comprehensive history of the country, from its beginnings in the seventh century, to its rise as a Buddhist empire in medieval times, to its conquest by China in 1950, and subsequent rule by the Chinese.

Tibet, Tibet

Tibet, Tibet PDF Author: Patrick French
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307548066
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
At different times in its history Tibet has been renowned for pacifism and martial prowess, enlightenment and cruelty. The Dalai Lama may be the only religious leader who can inspire the devotion of agnostics. Patrick French has been fascinated by Tibet since he was a teenager. He has read its history, agitated for its freedom, and risked arrest to travel through its remote interior. His love and knowledge inform every page of this learned, literate, and impassioned book. Talking with nomads and Buddhist nuns, exiles and collaborators, French portrays a nation demoralized by a half-century of Chinese occupation and forced to depend on the patronage of Western dilettantes. He demolishes many of the myths accruing to Tibet–including those centering around the radiant figure of the Dalai Lama. Combining the best of history, travel writing, and memoir, Tibet, Tibet is a work of extraordinary power and insight.

The Mountains of Tibet

The Mountains of Tibet PDF Author: Mordicai Gerstein
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0064432114
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
After dying, a Tibetan woodcutter is given the choice of going to heaven or to live another life anywhere in the universe.

The Culture of the Book in Tibet

The Culture of the Book in Tibet PDF Author: Kurtis R. Schaeffer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231147163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Drawing on sources spanning the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries, Kurtis R. Schaeffer envisions the scholars and hermits, madmen and ministers, kings and queens responsible for Tibet's massive canons. He describes how Tibetan scholars edited and printed works of religion, literature, art, and science and what this indicates about the interrelation of material and cultural practices. The Tibetan book is at once the embodiment of the Buddha's voice, a principal means of education, a source of tradition and authority, an economic product, a finely crafted aesthetic object, a medium of Buddhist written culture, and a symbol of the religion itself. A meticulous study that draws on more than 150 understudied Tibetan sources, The Culture of the Book in Tibet is the first volume to trace this singular history, allowing for a greater understanding of the Tibetan plateau.

The Book of Tibetan Elders

The Book of Tibetan Elders PDF Author: Sandy Johnson
Publisher: Riverhead Books (Hardcover)
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
"A historically isolated people, the Tibetans have now indeed come to the land of the red man, and nearly every other country on earth. When the Chinese invaded the country in 1959 and proceeded to destroy the ancient-wisdom culture as well as nearly a sixth of the population, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans fled to India and parts west. In the 1980s, the prophecy was fulfilled, and the Dalai Lama, exiled leader of Tibet, met with Hopi and other American Indian elders in an effort to reunite the brothers." "Tibet's spiritual elders are dying off, and it is with them that so many of the secrets of survival lie. They are the ones who can find by touching someone's wrist what our medicine cannot detect; they saw the empty spaces of the atom before science considered the concept of subatomic particles; they know how to realign even severe emotional imbalances without drugs or therapy; they know what plants heal us (they have catalogued more than two thousand) and how to save them from destruction; they predicted the demise of their own country at the hands of the Chinese; they saw the coming of AIDS almost ten centuries ago. These people are dying off, and with them, the wisdom we need to make it through the next century and beyond." "After the Chinese occupation of their country, many Tibetan elders were killed in reeducation camps. Many survived, however, to escape what has now become a brutally oppressive environment. Sandy Johnson traveled around the world gathering the life stories and teachings of Tibetan doctors, the state oracle, the previous Dalai Lama's tailor, the great women masters - the entire range of the culture. An astrologer offers to produce Sandy's chart, including the date of her death; a stone carver shows her the rocks with prayers painted on them that he places in the river at the end of every day so that the water may carry blessings to everything it touches; Johnson meets a woman of indeterminate age who lives her life in a cave praying that people might be less distracted by material things and learn to care for each other again. At the same time, Johnson herself is on a spiritual quest, and interwoven with the stories of the elders comes her own physical healing as well as a long-awaited reconciliation with her family. The book is filled with predictions made by the Tibetan elders about the course of Johnson's life - most of which have already come true."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Tibet

Tibet PDF Author: Phil Borges
Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications
ISBN: 9780847836918
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Photographer Phil Borges introduces Tibetans as individuals rather than as an anonymous element of a remote ethnic group. His first-hand interviews and portraits illustrate how dramatic development, climate change, and the deep devotion of the people are interacting to transform Tibetan culture--for better or for worse."--Jacket.

The Sichuan Frontier and Tibet

The Sichuan Frontier and Tibet PDF Author: Yingcong Dai
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295800704
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
During China's last dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911), the empire's remote, bleak, and politically insignificant Southwest rose to become a strategically vital area. This study of the imperial government's handling of the southwestern frontier illuminates issues of considerable importance in Chinese history and foreign relations: Sichuan's rise as a key strategic area in relation to the complicated struggle between the Zunghar Mongols and China over Tibet, Sichuan's neighbor to the west, and consequent developments in governance and taxation of the area. Through analysis of government documents, gazetteers, and private accounts, Yingcong Dai explores the intersections of political and social history, arguing that imperial strategy toward the southwestern frontier was pivotal in changing Sichuan's socioeconomic landscape. Government policies resulted in light taxation, immigration into Sichuan, and a military market for local products, thus altering Sichuan but ironically contributing toward the eventual demise of the Qing. Dai's detailed, objective analysis of China's historical relationship with Tibet will be useful for readers seeking to understand debates concerning Tibet's sovereignty, Tibetan theocratic government, and the political dimension of the system of incarnate Tibetan lamas (of which the Dalai Lama is one).

Medicine and Memory in Tibet

Medicine and Memory in Tibet PDF Author: Theresia Hofer
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 029574300X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Only fifty years ago, Tibetan medicine, now seen in China as a vibrant aspect of Tibetan culture, was considered a feudal vestige to be eliminated through government-led social transformation. Medicine and Memory in Tibet examines medical revivalism on the geographic and sociopolitical margins both of China and of Tibet�s medical establishment in Lhasa, exploring the work of medical practitioners, or amchi, and of Medical Houses in the west-central region of Tsang. Due to difficult research access and the power of state institutions in the writing of history, the perspectives of more marginal amchi have been absent from most accounts of Tibetan medicine. Theresia Hofer breaks new ground both theoretically and ethnographically, in ways that would be impossible in today�s more restrictive political climate that severely limits access for researchers. She illuminates how medical practitioners safeguarded their professional heritage through great adversity and personal hardship.

Taming Tibet

Taming Tibet PDF Author: Emily Yeh
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801469775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
The violent protests in Lhasa in 2008 against Chinese rule were met by disbelief and anger on the part of Chinese citizens and state authorities, perplexed by Tibetans' apparent ingratitude for the generous provision of development. In Taming Tibet, Emily T. Yeh examines how Chinese development projects in Tibet served to consolidate state space and power. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork between 2000 and 2009, Yeh traces how the transformation of the material landscape of Tibet between the 1950s and the first decade of the twenty-first century has often been enacted through the labor of Tibetans themselves. Focusing on Lhasa, Yeh shows how attempts to foster and improve Tibetan livelihoods through the expansion of markets and the subsidized building of new houses, the control over movement and space, and the education of Tibetan desires for development have worked together at different times and how they are experienced in everyday life. The master narrative of the PRC stresses generosity: the state and Han migrants selflessly provide development to the supposedly backward Tibetans, raising the living standards of the Han's "little brothers." Arguing that development is in this context a form of "indebtedness engineering," Yeh depicts development as a hegemonic project that simultaneously recruits Tibetans to participate in their own marginalization while entrapping them in gratitude to the Chinese state. The resulting transformations of the material landscape advance the project of state territorialization. Exploring the complexity of the Tibetan response to—and negotiations with—development, Taming Tibet focuses on three key aspects of China's modernization: agrarian change, Chinese migration, and urbanization. Yeh presents a wealth of ethnographic data and suggests fresh approaches that illuminate the Tibet Question.

Tibet

Tibet PDF Author: Lezlee Brown Halper
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 9350097974
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
ÔSince World War II few peoples have been more badly served than the Tibetans Ñ abandoned to their fate at the hands of the Han Chinese by their so-called friends and admirers. Yet the Tibetan myth, a cultural state of mind and belief, lives on. This excellent book explains its fate and its extraordinary durability, and suggests that the myth may yet prove to have more soft power and greater longevity than the Chinese Communist Party itself Ñ a wonderfully seditious idea which should set alarms ringing in Beijing.Õ Ð Sir Richard Dearlove, KCMG, OBE, formerly Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service ÔThe West is, understandably, deeply impressed with the spiritual energy and depth of the Dalai Lama; but we have long needed a judicious and comprehensive overview of how the current indefensible situation in Tibet arose that will take us beyond vague sympathy. This book offers just such an overview, spelling out how the short-term needs of the Cold War and the tunnel-vision of pro-Taiwanese lobbyists in the USA combined with the political and moral radar of the world. It is a tragic and shameful story, told here with clarity and challenge.Õ Ð Lord Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and former Archbishop of Canterbury ÔA brilliantly researched and written tour de force with many, sometimes surprising, insights. The authorsÕ ability to put todayÕs Tibetan tragedy into long-term perspective makes it possible to imagine a happier future for an autonomous Tibet.Õ Ð Christopher Andrew, Professor Emeritus of Modern and Contemporary History, University of Cambridge ÔA powerful and important account of the WestÕs fascination with Tibet and the hard truths of realpolitik that have shaped policy towards the country. The authors uncover the dilemma faced by the Western powers in their need to accommodate China at the expense of TibetÕs desire for independence.Õ Ð Tsering Shakya, author of The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 ÔThe most readable and insightful account of how Tibet, weak militarily, without genuine allies, and surrounded by powerful states, was frequently traduced. It is also the story of the emergence of a Tibetan myth that has become fundamental to its unique position in the world today. Anyone who wants to understand the problem that Tibet will pose for the PeopleÕs Republic of China as it progresses on its Òpeaceful riseÓ, and the continuing sympathy for Tibet in the West, must read this book.Õ Ð Hans van de Ven, Professor of Modern Chinese History, University of Cambridge ÔLezlee and Stefan Halper are unique; scholarly and possessing deep experience in high level public service, yet able to enthral the reader with a thrilling story. Tibet illuminates the adventure, mythology, violence and geopolitics of Tibet in a way never before achieved. They have unearthed new secrets through diligent research and unique access while never losing a grasp of the arc of the romantic tragedy that is the fabled ÒShangri-la.ÓÕ Ð John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy, member of the 9/11 Commission and the author of Command of the Seas ÔThis book reshapes the way we look at Tibet. A challenging, fascinating and provocative work that anyone interested in the society and its fate should buy.Õ Ð Christopher Coker, Professor of International RelaÂtions, London School of Economics ÔThis book evokes a romantic yet informative vision of Tibet based on extensive research into the official record. Many episodes and details will be new and surprising even to veteran scholars of modern Tibetan history, let alone the general reader.Õ Ð Krishnan Srinivasan, former Indian foreign secretary TibetÕs enduring myth, animated by the tales of Himalayan adventurers, British military expeditions, and the novel, Lost Horizon, remains an inspirational fantasy, a modern morality play about the failure of brutality to subdue the human spirit. Tibet also exercises immense Ôsoft powerÕ as one of the lenses through which the world views China.' This book traces the origins and manifestations of the Tibetan myth, as propagated by Younghusband, Madame Blavatsky, Himmler, Acheson and Roosevelt. The authors discuss how, after World War II, Tibet Ñ isolated, misunderstood and with a tiny elite unschooled in politicalÐmilitary realities ÐÐ misread the diplomacy between its two giant neighbours, India and China, forlornly hoping London or Washington might intervene. The PLA sought nothing less than to deconstruct traditional Tibet, unseat the Dalai Lama and ÔabsorbÕ this vast region into the PeopleÕs Republic, and Lhasa succumbed to ChinaÕs invasion in 1950. Drawing on declassified CIA and Chinese documents, the authors reveal MaoÕs collusion with Stalin to subdue Tibet, double-dealing by Nehru, the brilliant diplomacy of Chou En-lai and how Washington see-sawed between the China lobby, who insisted there be no backing for an independent Tibet, and presidents Truman and later Eisenhower, who initiated a covert CIA programme to support the Dalai Lama and resist Chinese occupation. It is an ignoble saga with few heroes, if any, other than ordinary Tibetans.