The Fate of Tibet: When Big Insects Eat Small Insects

Cloth hardcover, 432 pages, map endpapers, NOT ex-library. Gently used, interior is clean with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. In an untorn, shelfworn dust jacket. -- This book is an in-depth study of the origins of the fate of a nation. It begins from the time Buddhism was introduced in Tibet. It studies the evolution of the Priest-Patron Relationship with the Mongol Khans and later the Manchu Dynasty. It observes the effect of the appearance, in the eighteenth century, of a new player on the stage: the British Empire with its 'large insect' expansionist policies and its rivalry with the Russian Empire. It looks at the conservative attitude of the Tibetan elergy that blocked all the efforts for modernization by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama who, in his prophetic Testament, warned his people of the impeding avalanche: "and long and dark shall be the night". It analyses why Tibet was caught sleeping in its nirvanic isolation when liberation movements were shaking the world. In this unfolding drama, the year 1950 is perceived as a turning point - a Fateful Year - for Tibet and also for the newly free India who did not realize that in refusing to stand for Tibet's right for self-determination, she would forfeit her moral right to lead the decolonized world. -- Contents: Introduction; First Propagation of Buddhism in Tibet: The Light from India; Return of Buddhism to Tibet: The Second Propagation; Decline of Buddhism in India; Relations with the Mongols and the Yuans: The Genesis of the Choe-yon Relationship; Relations Between Tibet and China During the Ming and Early Qing Dynasties; Troubled Times: The 18th and 19 Century; British Imperial Wave: Contacts Between Tibet and British India; From the Russian Threat to the Younghusband Expedition; The Iron Is Hot: The Younghusband Expedition; Large Insects Are Eating Small Insects: The Difficult Years; End of the Choe-yon Relationship and the Exile in India; Simla Conference; Independent Years; Before the Avalanche; India Becomes Independent; China Becomes Red: The Communists Take Over China; Don't Rock the Boat: The Months Before the Fateful Year; 1950: The Year of the Iron-Tiger: The Beginning of the Fateful Year; From All Sides: Tibet Invaded; India's and the World's Reaction; Appeal to the UN: The International Betrayal; Debate in India; Pannikar Factor; Appeasement and Ahimsa; Nehru and the Tibet Policy; The Avalanche; A Possible Solution; Bibliography.…