A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 4

On one hand, this volume is the culmination of Melvyn C. Goldstein’s forty-year effort to tell the story of Tibet’s half-century of autonomy, and on the other, it is a freestanding account of that story’s most dramatic and tragic moment. In the end, Goldstein presents foundational scholarship on a crucial moment in Sino-Tibetan history, one that is essential to understand contemporary politics between China and the Dalai Lama.—Brantly Womack, C. K. Yen Professor of Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia   A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 4 is a careful and detailed examination of the political history of central Tibet during the two years preceding the uprising in Lhasa on March 10, 1959. Goldstein conveys a wealth of new insights based on his extensive analysis of Tibetan, Chinese, and English written and oral sources. This important and accessible volume fills a lacuna in the field of modern Tibetan history, and it is essential reading for anyone—specialist and nonspecialist—who is interested in the complex history of modern Tibet.—Dáša Pejchar Mortensen, Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Davidson College In this fourth volume of Melvyn Goldstein's magisterial history of twentieth-century Tibet, Goldstein challenges the myths associated with the 1959 rebellion in Tibet and provides an objective view of the involvement of monks, the CIA, and the Chinese Communists in strong contrast to the biases and propaganda that have enveloped this history.—Morris Rossabi, author of Modern Mongolia