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.

When the Chinese communists came to power in 1949, they moved to reestablish their "traditional" borders and in 1959 annexed Tibet. Most monasteries were closed, nomads were moved onto communes, the nobility were stripped of privileges, forests were cut, roads were paved, military airfields were constructed, and Tibet's communication with the outside world was cut off. A Portrait of Lost Tibet provides rare documentary photographs of traditional Tibetan life as it had been lived for countless generations before the radical disruption effected by the Chinese takeover. Rosemary Jones Tung's text describes the culture Ilya Tolstoy and Brooke Dolan found during their ten-month trek across Tibet in 1942. Tung has selected 131 photographs from the two thousand taken during their expedition. When the Chinese communists came to power in 1949, they moved to reestablish their "traditional" borders and in 1959 annexed Tibet. Most monasteries were closed, nomads were moved onto communes, the nobility were stripped of privileges, forests were cut, roads were paved, military airfields were constructed, and Tibet's communication with the outside world was cut off. A Portrait of Lost Tibet provides rare documentary photographs of traditional Tibetan life as it had been lived for countless generations before the radical disruption effected by the Chinese takeover. Rosemary Jones Tung's text describes the culture Ilya Tolstoy and Brooke Dolan found during their ten-month trek across Tibet in 1942. Tung has selected 131 photographs from the two thousand taken during their expedition.

An account of an Austrian mountain climber's escape from a British internment camp in India during World War Two and his twenty-one-month journey through the Himalayas to safety in the Forbidden City of Lhasa in Tibet.

Caught in a violent storm and blown far off their intended course, five American airmen--flying the dangerous Himalayan supply route known as "The Hump"--were forced to bail out just seconds before their plane ran out of fuel. To their astonishment, they found they had landed in the heart of Tibet. There they had to confront what, to them, seemed a bizarre--even alien--people. At the same time, they had to extricate themselves from the political turmoil that even then was raging around Tibet's right to be independent from China. Now back in print, Lost in Tibet is an extraordinary story of high adventure that sheds light on the remarkable Tibetan people, just at the moment when they were coming to terms with a hostile outside world.

The legend of Shangri-La emerged from the Tibetan Buddhist belief in beyul, or hidden lands. Tibetan prophecies proclaim that the greatest of these mythical sanctuaries lies at the eastern edge of the Himalayas, veiled by a colossal waterfall at the heart of the forbidding Tsangpo gorge. After years of research and investigation, Buddhist scholar and world-class climber Ian Baker and his team made worldwide news by reaching the bottom of the Tsangpo gorge and finding a magnificent 108-foot-high waterfall the legendary grail of both Western explorers and Tibetan seekers. The Heart of the World recounts one of the most captivating stories of exploration and discovery in recent memory an extraordinary journey into one of the wildest and most inaccessible places on earth, a meditation on our place in nature, and a pilgrimage to the heart of Tibetan Buddhism.

This unique book reveals the existence of an advanced civilization where none was known before, presenting an entirely new perspective on the culture and history of Tibet. In his groundbreaking study of an epic period in Tibet few people even knew existed, John Vincent Bellezza details the discovery of an ancient people on the most desolate reaches of the Tibetan plateau, revolutionizing our ideas about who Tibetans really are. While many associate Tibet with Buddhism, it was also once a land of warriors and chariots, whose burials included megalithic arrays and golden masks. This first Tibetan civilization, known as Zhang Zhung, was a cosmopolitan one with links extending across Eurasia, bringing it in line with many of the major cultural innovations of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. Based on decades of research, The Dawn of Tibet draws on a rich trove of archaeological, textual, and ethnographic materials collected and analyzed by the author. Bellezza describes the vast network of castles, temples, megaliths, necropolises, and rock art established on the highest and now depopulated part of the Tibetan plateau. He relates literary tales of priests and priestesses, horned deities, and the celestial afterlife to the actual archaeological evidence, providing a fascinating perspective on the origins and development of civilization. The story builds to the present by following the colorful culture of the herders of Upper Tibet, an ancient people whose way of life is endangered by modern development. Tracing Bellezza’s epic journeys across lands where few Westerners have ventured, this book provides a compelling window into the most inaccessible reaches of Tibet and a civilization that flourished long before Buddhism took root.