Download or read book Tibet in Agony written by Jianglin Li and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-10 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1959 the Dalai Lama emerged in India, where he set up his government in exile. Soon after he left Lhasa the Chinese People's Liberation Army pummeled the city in the "Battle of Lhasa." The Tibetans were forced to capitulate, putting Mao in a position to impose Communist rule over Tibet

Download or read book Superpower Interrupted written by Michael Schuman and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This global history as the Chinese would write it gives brilliant and unconventional insights for understanding China's role in the world, especially the drive to "Make China Great Again." We in the West routinely ask: "What does China want?" The answer is quite simple: the superpower status it always had, but briefly lost. In this colorful, informative story filled with fascinating characters, epic battles, influential thinkers, and decisive moments, we come to understand how the Chinese view their own history and how its narrative is distinctly different from that of Western civilization. More important, we come to see how this unique Chinese history of the world shapes China's economic policy, attitude toward the United States and the rest of the world, relations with its neighbors, positions on democracy and human rights, and notions of good government. As the Chinese see it, for as far back as anyone can remember, China had the richest economy, the strongest military, and the most advanced philosophy, culture, and technology. The collision with the West knocked China's historical narrative off course for the first time, as its 5,000-year reign as an unrivaled superpower came to an ignominious end. Ever since, the Chinese have licked their wounds and fixated on returning their country to its former greatness, restoring the Chinese version of its place in the world as they had always known it. For the Chinese, the question was never if they could reclaim their former dominant position in the world, but when.

Download or read book Sikkim written by Andrew Duff and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2015-05-14 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true story of Sikkim, a tiny Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas that survived the end of the British Empire only to be annexed by India in 1975.It tells the remarkable tale of Thondup Namgyal, the last King of Sikkim, and his American wife, Hope Cooke, thrust unwittingly into the spotlight as they sought support for Sikkim's independence after their 'fairytale' wedding in 1963. As tensions between India and China spilled over into war in the Himalayas, Sikkim became a pawn in the Cold War in Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. Rumours circulated that Hope was a CIA spy. Meanwhile, a shadowy Scottish adventuress, the Kazini of Chakung, married to Sikkim's leading political figure, coordinated opposition to the Palace. As the world's major powers jostled for regional supremacy during the early 1970s Sikkim and its ruling family never stood a chance. On the eve of declaring an Emergency across India, Indira Gandhi outwitted everyone to bring down the curtain on the 300 year-old Namgyal dynasty. Based on interviews and archive research, as well as a retracing of a journey the author's grandfather made in 1922, this is a thrilling, romantic and informative glimpse of a real-life Shangri-La.

Download or read book Unforgettable Kalimpong written by Monila De and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kalimpong was flooded with foreigners in the early fifties when China was invading Tibet. This sudden influx of foreign nationals led Pandit Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, to announce that Kalimpong was a ‘Nest of Spies’. The author, a school girl then, got the opportunity to meet and know these colourful foreigners and wrote about her interactions with them. She spent her happy childhood in pristine Kalimpong, a child’s paradise, in the company of several illustrious and famous characters. There were princes, princesses, writers, poets, academics, and scholars as well as simple ordinary people such as ayahs, servants, and locals. The author enjoyed her school days and has written about the teachers, nuns, and all the pranks she played at school in her book, Unforgettable Kalimpong. All her childhood experiences prompted her to write these stories, all through which runs a vein of humour bringing the characters to life.

Download or read book When the Iron Bird Flies written by Jianglin Li and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An untold story that reshapes our understanding of Chinese and Tibetan history From 1956 to 1962, devastating military conflicts took place in China's southwestern and northwestern regions. Official record at the time scarcely made mention of the campaign, and in the years since only lukewarm acknowledgment of the violence has surfaced. When the Iron Bird Flies, by Jianglin Li, breaks this decades long silence to reveal for the first time a comprehensive and explosive picture of the six years that would prove definitive in modern Tibetan and Chinese history. The CCP referred to the campaign as "suppressing the Tibetan rebellion." It would lead to the 14th Dalai Lama's exile in India, as well as the Tibetan diaspora in 1959, though the battles lasted three additional years after these events. Featuring key figures in modern Chinese history, the battles waged in this period covered a vast geographical region. This book offers a portrait of chaos, deception, heroism, and massive loss. Beyond the significant death toll across the Tibetan regions, the war also destroyed most Tibetan monasteries in a concerted effort to eradicate local religion and scholarship. Despite being considered a military success, to this day, the operations in the agricultural regions remain unknown. As large numbers of Tibetans have self-immolated in recent years to protest Chinese occupation, Li shows that the largest number of cases occurred in the sites most heavily affected by this hidden war. She argues persuasively that the events described in this book will shed more light on our current moment, and will help us understand the unrelenting struggle of the Tibetan people for their freedom.

Download or read book Eat the Buddha written by Barbara Demick and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the bestselling author of Nothing to Envy “A brilliantly reported and eye-opening work of narrative nonfiction.”—The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Parul Sehgal, The New York Times • The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • NPR • The Economist • Outside • Foreign Affairs Just as she did with North Korea, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick explores one of the most hidden corners of the world. She tells the story of a Tibetan town perched eleven thousand feet above sea level that is one of the most difficult places in all of China for foreigners to visit. Ngaba was one of the first places where the Tibetans and the Chinese Communists encountered one another. In the 1930s, Mao Zedong’s Red Army fled into the Tibetan plateau to escape their adversaries in the Chinese Civil War. By the time the soldiers reached Ngaba, they were so hungry that they looted monasteries and ate religious statues made of flour and butter—to Tibetans, it was as if they were eating the Buddha. Their experiences would make Ngaba one of the engines of Tibetan resistance for decades to come, culminating in shocking acts of self-immolation. Eat the Buddha spans decades of modern Tibetan and Chinese history, as told through the private lives of Demick’s subjects, among them a princess whose family is wiped out during the Cultural Revolution, a young Tibetan nomad who becomes radicalized in the storied monastery of Kirti, an upwardly mobile entrepreneur who falls in love with a Chinese woman, a poet and intellectual who risks everything to voice his resistance, and a Tibetan schoolgirl forced to choose at an early age between her family and the elusive lure of Chinese money. All of them face the same dilemma: Do they resist the Chinese, or do they join them? Do they adhere to Buddhist teachings of compassion and nonviolence, or do they fight? Illuminating a culture that has long been romanticized by Westerners as deeply spiritual and peaceful, Demick reveals what it is really like to be a Tibetan in the twenty-first century, trying to preserve one’s culture, faith, and language against the depredations of a seemingly unstoppable, technologically all-seeing superpower. Her depiction is nuanced, unvarnished, and at times shocking.

Download or read book White Crane Lend Me Your Wings written by Dr Tsewang Yishey Pemba and published by Niyogi Books. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A posthumous novel by Dr Tsewang Yishey Pemba, the founding father of Tibetan-English literature, White Crane, Lend me your Wings is a historical fiction set in the breathtakingly beautiful Nyarong Valley of the Kham province of Eastern Tibet in the first half of the twentieth century. Dr Pemba skillfully weaves a dazzling tapestry of individual lives and sweeping events creating an epic vision of a country and people during a time of tremendous upheaval. The novel begins with a never-told-before story of a failed Christian mission in Tibet and takes one into the heartland of Eastern Tibet by capturing the zeitgeist of the fierce warrior tribe of Khampas ruled by chieftains. This coming-of-age narrative is a riveting tale of vengeance, warfare and love unfolded through the life story of two young boys and their family and friends. The personal drama gets embroiled in a national catastrophe as China invades Tibet forcing it out of its isolation. Ultimately, the novel delves into themes such as tradition versus modernity, individual choice and freedom, the nature of governance, the role of religion in people’s lives, the inevitability of change and the importance of human values such as loyalty and compassion.

Download or read book Murder in the High Himalaya written by Jonathan Green and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On September 30, 2006 gunfire echoed through the thin air near Advance Base Camp on Cho Oyu Mountain. Frequented by thousands of climbers each year, Cho Oyu lies nineteen miles east of Mt. Everest on the border between Tibet and Nepal. To the elite mountaineering community, it offers a straightforward summit -- a warm-up climb to her formidable sister. To Tibetans, Cho Oyu promises a gateway to freedom through a secret glacial path: the Nangpa La. Murder in the High Himalaya is the unforgettable account of the brutal killing of Kelsang Namtso -- a seventeen-year-old Tibetan nun fleeing to India -- by Chinese border guards. Witnessed by dozens of Western climbers, Kelsang's death sparked an international debate over China's savage oppression of Tibet. Adventure reporter Jonathan Green has gained rare entrance into this shadow-land at the rooftop of the world. In his affecting portrait of modern Tibet, Green raises enduring questions about morality and the lengths we go to achieve freedom.

Download or read book Transcultural Encounters in the Himalayan Borderlands written by Markus Viehbeck and published by Heidelberg University Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collaborative study investigates the hill station of Kalimpong and the larger Eastern Himalayan borderlands as a paradigmatic case of a “contact zone.” In the colonial and early post-colonial era, this space enabled a variety of encounters: between (British) India, Tibet, and China, but also Nepal and Bhutan; between Christian mission and Himalayan religions; between global flows of money and information and local markets and practices. Using a plethora of local and global historical sources, the contributing essays follow the pathways of people from diverse cultural backgrounds and investigate the new forms of knowledge and practice that resulted from their encounters and their shifting power relations. The volume provides not only a nuanced historiography of Kalimpong and its adjacent areas, but also a conceptual model for studying transcultural processes in borderland spaces and their colonial and post-colonial dynamics.

Download or read book Engaging China written by Anne Thurston and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together leading China specialists to offer a retrospective on relations between the United States and China over the last half-century and consider what might be next. The contributors include academics, leaders of China-related nongovernmental organizations, and former diplomats and government officials.

Download or read book The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong written by Gyalo Thondup and published by Random House India. This book was released on 2016-06-08 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the untold story of Tibet—a compelling account of conspiracy, covert organizations and international intrigue—told through the eyes of Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama’s elder brother. After Tibet was overrun by the Chinese in 1951, Thondup served for decades as His Holiness’ special envoy to many countries, gaining an unparalleled perspective of the ongoing tussle of the divergent interests of China, India, Russia and the United States. Together with Anne F. Thurston, Gyalo Thondup shares his experiences, classified information and rare photos for the first time and his vision for Tibet in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Smash and Grab written by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book No Wall Too High written by Xu Hongci and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-02-02 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘One of the greatest escape stories I’ve ever read’ Mail on Sunday An ordinary man’s extraordinary escape from Mao’s brutal labour camps Xu Hongci was an ordinary medical student when he was incarcerated under Mao’s regime and forced to spend years of his youth in China’s most brutal labour camps. Three times he tried to escape. And three times he failed. But, determined, he eventually broke free, travelling the length of China, across the Gobi desert, and into Mongolia. It was one of the greatest prison breaks of all time, during one of the worst totalitarian tragedies of the 20th Century. This is the extraordinary memoir of his unrelenting struggle to retain dignity, integrity and freedom; but also the untold story of what life was like for ordinary people trapped in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.

Download or read book The Eyes of the Eagle written by Ruskin Bond and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-07-15 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Another fascinating tale from Indias most-loved storyteller Little Jai with his dog Motu, guards his grandfathers flock in the Tung meadows, high up on the Himalayan range. But on the prowl is a mighty golden eagle, with its powerful beak and talons, ready to prey on the lambs. Things take a turn for the worse when Motu is injured by the fierce bird. Will Jai be able to protect his lambs from the menacing eyes of the eagle? This beautifully illustrated edition brings alive the magical charm of one of Ruskin Bonds most unforgettable tales.

Download or read book The Man Who Stayed Behind written by Sidney Rittenberg and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2001-04-03 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of "an idealistic young American who freely cast his lot with the Chinese revolution only to be struck down by that revolution at the floodtide of its success."--Leonard Woodcock, first American Ambassador to China.

Download or read book Bruised Passports written by Savi Munjal and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2022-02-20 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As young kids, SAVI and VID, as they are popularly known to their followers, dreamt of travelling the world together. In 2013, they turned this dream into reality with the launch of their travel blog, BRUISED PASSPORTS. And now, countless flights, dreamy destinations and beautiful pictures later, the OG couple of travel has decided to reveal the secret of their carefree and footloose life. But this isn't just a book filled with dreamy stories of travel, people and culture; in these pages, Savi and Vid share their insights on how you, too, can live a life full of memories, adventure and the excitement of discovering a new place. With tips, plans and advice inspired by the hurdles and successes they have faced, Savi and Vid tell you how to be successful digital nomads in a post-pandemic world. From financial planning to, risk analysis, to taking that leap of faith, to how to create a brand of your own, BRUISED PASSPORTS promises to be a treasure trove for anyone who wants to take the plunge and set off on a journey to live life on their own terms.

Download or read book Enemies of the People written by Anne F. Thurston and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: