Tibet : an unfinished story

Resource Information

The work Tibet : an unfinished story represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Bowdoin College Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Tibet : an unfinished story

Title remainder

an unfinished story

Statement of responsibility

Lezlee Brown Halper, Stefan Halper

Creator

• Halper, Lezlee Brown

Contributor

• Halper, Stefan A

Subject

• India -- Foreign relations -- China
• Myth -- Political aspects | History -- 20th century
• Tibet Autonomous Region (China) -- Foreign public opinion, Western
• Tibet Autonomous Region (China) -- Foreign relations -- 20th century
• Tibet Autonomous Region (China) -- History -- 1951-
• Tibet Autonomous Region (China) -- Strategic aspects
• United States -- Foreign relations -- 1945-1953
• United States -- Foreign relations -- 1953-1961
• World politics -- 1945-1989
• China -- Foreign relations -- India

Language

eng

Summary

• "The mythologising of Tibet in the West and the Himalyan state's subsequent abandonment to China are recounted in this briskly-paced and revealing new history"--
• "Tibet's 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 'soft power' 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, Madam Blavatsky, Himmler, Acheson and Roosevelt. The authors discuss how, after WW2, Tibet-- isolated, misunderstood and with a tiny elite unschooled in political-military realities--misread the diplomacy between its two giant neighbours, India and China, forlornly hoping London or Washington might intervene. China's People's Liberation Army sought nothing less than to deconstruct traditional Tibet, unseat the Dalai Lama and 'absorb' this vast region into the People's Republic, and Lhasa succumbed to China's invasion in 1950. Drawing on declassified CIA and Chinese documents, the authors reveal Mao's 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, if any, heroes, other than ordinary Tibetans"--

Assigning source

• Provided by publisher
• Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography