There's not "one" story about Tibet, of course. Like any other human drama, especially one which has proven so emotional for those involved, there are a thousand stories from a thousand people.

But Tashi Tsering's story is an important one. He brings voice to a perspective that has been silenced for far too long in the West. I would recommend this book strongly to anyone who feels they already "know" all there is to know about Tibet; odds are, you're wrong.

Instead of using my own words... let me quote a few paragraphs from the book:

"He responded unequivocally that his decision [to return to Tibet from the University of Washington in 1963] had nothing to do with money. Instead he saw himself as a representative of the common people who wanted to help create a new, modern Tibet. The atmosphere became somewhat tense, since the other Tibetans, who were aristocrats, hated the communists and China and were committed to freeing Tibet forom Chinese control."

...

[Many years later, after 1985, on one of Melvyn Goldstein's trips to China]

"On one of my trips, Tashi surprised me by asking if I could help him publish a book about his life. He thought foreigners needed to know about common Tibetans - that is, Tibetans who were not aristocrats or monastic prelates or incarnate lamas. He felt his story could play a useful role in assisting both Westerners and young Tibetans born in exile to understand the real - non-Shangrila - Tibet."

Finally a book that treats Tibet as a nation and a people in history and not just a land of changeless Buddhism and nomads! The book was dropped quietly from the publisher/distributor Snow Lion after initial fan-fare when it was discovered that this Tibetan author, though fervently pro-Tibet, was equally fervent against the rule of the Dge-lugspa (the Dalai Lama's sect), and he describes in detail what he had to suffer as a member of the Dalai Lama's personal dance troup. Kudos to Tashi Tsering for telling his incredible story!

I finished reading this book in 3 consecutive nights. Fascinating account of a 10-year-old boy becoming a member of the Dalai Lama's personal dance troupe as a tax obligation; how the boy grew up, worked for the exiled noble Tibetan leadership, and eventually became a Red Guard--this is the first time I've learned that there are many Tibetan red guards during the Cultural Revolution, the reasons why these Tibetans try to better their old serf-noble society, and why they joined the misguided Cultural Revolution. At the end I can't help but feel utmost respect for Mr. Tsering. Even though he's made mistakes, he freely admits to them. The amount of trauma he has gone through in his life is beyond what many people can take, yet he perseveres. Now I fully support his goal: establishing schools in Tibet for the Tibetan children. Bravo, Mr. Tsering. I hope someday this life story will be made into a movie. It will be much more intelligent than 7 Years In Tibet. Instead! of a fluff story about the "dumb natives", here is one intelligent, complex Tibetan.

Melvyn Goldstein and Cynthia M. Beall's anthropological study of a Mongolian herding community, presents an intimate portrait of life on the steppes and the dramatic changes these people have undergone through the previous seventy years of Communism. In the introduction the authors provide a brief overview of Mongolian history from the conquests of the twelfth century khans to the development of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party under the Soviet System. While continually emphasizing the nomadic herding economy, Goldstein and Beall's book is really a close look at the lives of individuals and families and how they survive both this harsh climate and the changing political and economic scene.

Goldstein and Beall first layout a the problem of survival in the difficult environmental conditions on the steppes and the tenacity, illustrating the point with the tale of a herder found frozen to death as he crawled toward his home, less than a kilometer from safety. It is the livestock, contend the authors, that are the wealth and the security of these nomads. Herds are portable wealth on four legs of which no portion is wasted and each animal fulfills a specific function in the provision of basic needs: food, clothing, transportation. "Climate drives the annual cycle of the nomads life" and determines the survival of both herds and herder.

Goldstein and Beall stayed in the herding community of Moost in the Altai Mountains. Particularly detailed descriptions of traditional Mongolian hospitality--the exchange of snuff, the serving of milk-tea and "hospitality" foods--give a warm picture of an extremely outgoing and friendly people. The authors also give detailed descriptions of daily activities: slaughtering a sheep, making cheese, drying milk curds. Most such work is part of a continual preparation for surviving the extreme winters. Even ritual actions demonstrate the difficulty of life on these steppes. Goldstein and Beall attended several hair-cutting ceremonies for Mongolian children. This ritual first haircut does not take place until a child has reached the age of four or five, demonstrating that it is likely to survive childhood.

One of the questions the authors had for the Mongols was how their lives had changed under the Communist collectives and how they viewed the new free-market economy. Surprisingly, the answer was generally a noncommittal shrug. When the collective system was first forced upon the Mongols by the Communist government in 1927, herders slaughtered their animals rather than turn them over to government ownership. A less direct approach was taken by the government which, through excessive taxation, forced the independent herders to turn to the collectives for survival in the same way that tribes had traditionally banded together to survive adversity. The collectives, called negdels, took care of the business end of marketing the herds and providing social services. Now men in positions of local authority fear that herders will not be able to fend for themselves in a free-market economy, while the herders not understanding those concepts go on as they always have, bartering in their small local markets for whatever they need and living off their herds. Since there was no concept of land ownership before the collectives, the collective leaders divided negdels along a traditional boundaries of range areas--adapting the communist collective to the nomadic lifestyle rather than the other way around.

Goldstein and Beall also describe in detail the mobile housing of the Mongols, the traditional wooden-framed, felt-covered ger or yurt. Extremely portable and highly versatile, the ger is suited to the cold, high-wind climate of the steppes. Also significant to the nomadic lifestyle is the horse. The authors quote a thirteenth-century Chinese historian who said, "The Mongols are born in the saddle and grow up on horseback; they learn to fight by themselves as they spend all their life hunting the year-round" --an observation that is still true today. Along with horses the Mongols herd yaks, goats, sheep, and sometimes camels. The work of herding is no different under free-market economics than it was under the negdels or in the old tribal systems and women and men work side-by-side. The difference now is primarily in the private ownership of the animals. Where, under communism, the collective marketed the animals and made decisions about what animals to breed, the herder must now make these choices. Mongols understood the negdel system because "the collective economy incorporated important components of the traditional system of Mongol nomadic pastoralism."

According to Goldstein and Beall, some of the major benefits under Communism includesd education in rural areas and a decent health care system, benefits that Mongols fear will disappear under a freemarket economy. While the health care might not compare to hospital standards in the United States is was remarkable that the women of Moost enjoyed not only free prenatal care, maternity leave, and hospital childbirth under socialism, but also received a government stipend for each child at birth and again at sixmonths of age. Government pensions for women at age 50-55 (or as early as age 36 if they had four or more children) and for men at age 55-60 provide a surety for old age that helped to raise the standard of living for the herders.

Not only is this book a must in any scholarly study of Mongolian Culture, it is a fascinating and well-written text. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Central Asian culture.

This book is indispensable for anyone attempting to master literary Tibetan. Written by a well-known scholar, it exhibits the type of attention to detail that is frequently missing from grammar books. The systematic introduction of particles and its approach to analyzing clauses and sentences makes the task of breaking down complex Tibetan passages much easier.

Each chapter includes at least one reading passage presented in the Tibetan script along with a line by line transliteration and a free translation of the text. Each clause is then broken down step by step in a detailed section explaining the form and function of nearly every syllable or word. An extensive glossary and index to Tibetan particles is also included. An appendix includes sample readings from Communist sources. We did occasionally find an error in the Tibetan script but nothing that cannot be easily overcome by an attentive reader.

The Tibetan typeface used through the book is easy to read and fairly well designed.

With nearly 500 pages, this book is a must-have for any serious student of the Tibetan language.

Melvyn Goldstein's goal is not to prop up one side of the other in this debate; instead, he gives an account the past and the process that led to "the demise, in 1951, of the de facto independent Lamaist State." He posits that even though external actors gave rise to the fall of independent Tibet, in-house dynamics produced the state of affairs that enabled peripheral actors, mainly China, to succeed. Principal among the factors causative to Chinese military triumph was the fact that Tibet was not geared up for fighting. Tibet's religious leadership obstinately resisted the military transformation that might have enabled Tibet to resist Chinese domination. The point is now moot. This is played out in some length in its theatrical renditions in movies such as: Jean-Jacques Annaud's "Seven Years in Tibet" and Martin Scorsese's "Kundun" (both also available on Amazon.com). Truth be told, it was actually built-in to the Tibetan ontological framework of passivity and extreme isolation (somewhat self-imposed) that lead to its not being prepared for the Chinese onslaught. Through no fault of theirs events took the shape they did.

The book is broken up into two distinct parts - the opening part focusing on the 13th Dalai Lama and the period following his death and the next part dealing with the Taktra Regency (1941-1950) and the critical events of 1951. Goldstein sees the work as bridging: "two diametrically opposing views of Tibet's political status... The pro-Tibetan school argues that Tibet had been an independent state conquered by the Chinese Communists and was wrongly incorporated into the Chinese state. The pro-Chinese school sees Tibet as a traditional part of China which split from it as a consequence of British machinations after the fall of the Manchu dynasty, but which was rightly reunited with China in 1951" (xix). Goldstein, an anthropologist by schooling, does what he does best by submitting huge quantities of data, and suffers from the fact that he does not critically analyze the date in relation to the key issue of status. Status being what he himself brought on as his central thesis.

Goldstein's tale of political proceedings in Tibet during this, the twentieth century is by far more wide-ranging than any until that time, published; whether it is really more accurate or representative, or subject to politically expediency, is one of the questions brought up by his merely penning the book. He goes into great detail on what he refers to as the "serf" system in Tibet which is seen to be a misnomer by most Tibetans. On of the most disturbing issues relating to this massive missive is that Goldstein fails to mention the number of Tibetans in Tibet who suddenly died after having been "compelled to accept Chinese sovereignty" which has been projected to have been as much as 1.2 million (out of a population of around 6 million). This series of problematical events is also known by another expression, used by the International Commission of Jurists in 1960 in their denunciation of the Chinese actions in Tibet: "genocide." For more details on this and some of the other issues Goldstein may have missed, you can refer to "In Exile from the Land of Snows: The Definitive Account of the Dalai Lama and Tibet since the Chinese Conquest" by John F. Avedon (also available on Amazon.com).

I have to give Goldstein kudos though for placing complexity where there was none previously. This book shatters some of our closely held notions of Tibet as some form of Shangri-La. It may not have been his intent but Goldstein (as well as Avedon) clearly point out how betrayed or ignored Tibet was by Britain and America for geopolitical and selfish shortsighted reasons. The tome is an amazing look at the complexity and the range/extent of internal (for a lack of a better word) infighting that existed. Internal rivalries such as those between the monasteries resulting form their own internal infrastructure may have been one of the major causes and Goldstein makes an unwitting argument for internal sovereignty. The book is long and is meant for those who are interested (as no book this long will sustain a reader unless there is initial interest) but should always be critically examined and compared against other studies about Tibet. For Goldstein's lack of romanticizing of Tibet, I give him 5 stars.

Miguel Llora

Mr. Goldstein's book is informative, detailed, and well-researched. The author provides the reader with numerous maps and photos and presents the subject of Tibet and its de facto independence in an un-biased manner. His background in the culture was useful in explaining the customs and politics of Tibet. Tibet's external issues, mainly with China and Britain, are well balanced with the internal goings on of the government. Goldstein blends all this together to make sense of the status of the Land of Snows during this time period. However, for the most part, this is a political history, rather than a social history. That is, Goldstein does not give much time to issues outside the political realm of Tibet. Much time is spent on the central government and its so-called Three Seats (monasteries). He presents the evidence (government records, first-hand accounts,etc.) to show Tibet's status. To find a flaw in Mr. Goldstein's book would be to say that although it gave much detail and explanation, it needed more of that "human touch" with a sprinkle of emotion to give a feeling of the average Tibetan in the period 1913-1951. Those who would like to learn more about Tibet's government before the invasion of the Chinese Communists will definately appreciate this book. It is unsurpassed in its content. For general Tibet reading, I recommend "Tibet: the Road Ahead", by Dawa Norbu; "The Voice that Remembers", by Ama Adhe; and absolutely "Tears of Blood" by Mary Craig.

This book is a definitive history of Tibet covering a crucial period. Goldstein writes an extremely readable book. He covers a large time period using primary sources and interviews with the characters involved. He limits his analysis of the events and lets the readers examine the evidence. He gives evidence of the Tibetan government's faults as well as the abandonment of Tibet by the international community. This book is a must read for anyone trying to understand the current efforts of the Tibetan government in exile. 'Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival' by John Kenneth Knaus is also an excellent book that covers the US government's involvement with Tibet and gives extra insight to the information given by Goldstein.

Like most of the books in this series, Lonely Planet attempts to offer the best of all worlds and does a fairly consistent job of it. This phrasebook provides some basic background information on the language and its grammar but I have never found their transliteration schemes to be very accurate for the average American English speaker.

Within its covers, you will find just about every essential phrase the average traveler could ever hope for. Its compact size and price make it the cheapest foray available into the Tibetan language. The Tibetan script is included throughout for those who are interested in seeing the written word or just want to point out phrases instead of attempting to pronounce them correctly.

At less than $6 USD on average, every Tibetan language enthusiast should have a copy of this phrasebook.

My main objective was learning to speak some Tibetan on a conversational level, and not just a traveler's level. The book teaches the writitng system and enough grammar to be able to correctly speak Tibetan as we speak everyday English. Nothing too deep and technical, but nothing too brief. The small book is absolutely jam-packed with words and phrases. It suits the need of both the traveler and one who wants a basic conversational ability in Tibetan. It's value exceeds the price greatly!

I bought this book to get a little understanding of the Tibetan language. I got more than I expected. The phrasebook not only contains the most common phrases, but also a quick overview of the grammar and the alphabet. Since most of the Tibetans don't speak any English (expect cheapy cheapy and last price) I found this book very useful (and the Tibetans who saw me use it thought it was very amusing).
In short, it's definitely worth the $...

The last review has completely misunderstood the book, and I think I need to point this out so future readers won't continue to misread it. The reviewer from Santa Fe has three arguemnts: 1) He says that Goldstein argues that because Tibet has been part of China it's a good reason to remain so, and that this is nonsense, 2) the reviewer states that 'Chinese sovereignty in the age of horses is one thing, in the age of the airplane and the TV another, and, 3) The reviewer argues that Goldstein glosses the 'cultural genocide'.

First, Goldstein never advocates the PRC's view that China should control Tibet. How the reader arrived at this conclusion doesn't surprise me. Anytime I have tried to explain the Chinese position people have confused it with mine (which is quite different, as is Goldstein's). Goldstein has tried to write a history of how the two sides have agreed, compromised, misunderstood each other and fought each other. The historical question has been taken seriously by the Tibetan Government in Exile (see Shakabpa's history, which takes the historical relations very seriously and relevant to the question of independence), the PRC and Western Nations. Because the players involved take it seriously, Goldstein must address this.

Second, the age of the horse and the age of the TV isn't an argument. The Republic of Taiwan still claims Tibet, and the Dalai Lama has agreed to this claim (as Goldstein points out); not because the TV has been invented but because he has little choice. These questions will continue to be argued when Buicks and Volkswagons drive to the Moon.

Third, Goldstein does address the Tibetans' wish to preserve their culture (I find it distasteful that 'genocide' is tossed around so much these days; the whole world is being 'Americanized' and nobody [save the French, perhaps] has called it 'genocide'. Then again, it has a rhetorical ring that sets the liberal hounds straining at the leash...): Goldstein carefully explores China's despotic policy towards Tibetan culture in explaining why the Dalai Lama has moved towards compromise while others (say, his brother Thubtan Norbu) urge fighting. The Dalai Lama wishes to preserve his culture, so he must deal directly with the PRC. To think otherwise is to wish away a reality (something Buddhists are good at).

In the end, Goldstein is merely outlining what each side wants, and what he thinks the Dalai Lama should do to achieve his goals. The Tibet movement, though optimistic, is losing in the long run. Even if communism ended in China (and the Dalai Lama's laughable argument that communism has a half-life is being disproved in the former Soviet republics), the 900 million Han would still believe that Tibet is theirs. Only the utter collapse of China and a Tibetan revolution could grant independence. The question is, what can the friends of Tibet do to preserve Tibet's culture in the face of unlikely independence? I haven't heard a good idea yet, and time is running out. Maybe the reviewer in Santa Fe could start running guns from Kazakstan.

I have to take issue with a previous review. The reviewer questions first whether it is a genuine historical study, and second suggests the work has racist notions. To the first question, Goldstein cites historians (including, yes, E.Sperling) who are trained in both Tibetan and Chinese source material. Second, the reviewers claim that treating the Qing and Yuan Dynasties as different (than, say, the Ming) is racist, commenting, "Are America [sic] with black/native American/and [sic] Hispanic president [sic] and congress [a] legitimate American government?" This ignores of course the fact that the United States is a democracy while Qing and Yuan China were Chinas ruled by alien conquerors. Perhaps a small difference? Both the PRC and the Republic of China (Taiwan) claim the political boundries of the Qing State (except the PRC recognizes the Republic of Mongolia while the Republic of China does not); so we ask, is this a legitimate claim? Goldstein is interested in the claims of both the Tibetan Government in Exile and the PRC for Tibet, and he has written an excellent introduction.

There is no easy solution to an issue as complicated and intricate as the "Tibetan Problem". As much as I abhor the human right abuses in Tibet (which the author does too, apparently), I agree with Prof. Goldstein that the Chinese are really those who hold the trump card. I believe that if the exile government were to accept some sort of comprimise that will actually allow them to work INSIDE Tibet, their chance of achieving a genuine autonomy and preserving the Tibetan culture will be much enhanced, at least from a long term perspective. Important as the much publicized demographical change in Tibet is, one cannot neglect the elements of materialism that is continuously being brought into Tibet. As a friend of mine from China pointed out half mockingly, all that the communists have to do is to build more entertainment establishments to promote indulgence of sense pleasure among the younger generation. That in itself will be a huge blow to the preservation of a genuine Tibetan culture. Thirty years from now, if the exiled are still in exile, the situation will be grim. Time will be running out on a peaceful solution -- China will be substantially stronger, the nationalistic pride of an average Chinese will be stronger, the frustation of the Tibetans who support arm struggle will no more be contendable, and the Dalai Lama will probably no longer be there to represent a voice of peaceful struggle which will anyway have its credential debunked by then. As Prof. Goldstein pointed out, many opportunities for continuous negotiation had been squandered by misjudgement and misperception on both sides, I pray that when the door of negotiation is reopened, more subtantial results will be made.

This "Dictionary" might be useful to someone who already knows written Tibetan but it is almost useless for those who do not. For example: If you wish to look up a certain Tibetan word, say, "Trungpa" to discover it's English meaning you will find that everything is ordered according to the Tibetan alphabet in the Tibetan alphabet. I still have not found Trungpa or any other word I was looking for, for that matter.

The authors have committed a serious error in my opinion and have created what might be called an archetypal example of scholarly myopia. Most of us do not wish to become Lotsawas (Translators). Most of us wish to be able to look up an Englsh tranliteration of a Tibetan word and discover it's meaning.

The creators of this book should look up the word Bodhisattva in a Sanskrit Dictionary. Then they should create an English-Tibetan counterpart for this work which would demonstrate compassion towards those of us who have no intent of becoming Lotsawas.

If you already have a handle on written Tibetan then this "Dictionary" is probably just great, but for the rest of us it is just a huge waste of time.

This dictionary is undoubtedly the best out there for modern literary and colloquial Tibetan. It is excellent for political, literary, and colloquial terminology. Of course, the depth of these genres comes at the expense of (non-basic) religious/philosophical terminology. But anyone who is in the market to buy this book would have known this about the dictionary and Goldstein's expertise already.

Since the majority of Tibetan-English dictionaries are "Dharma" oriented anyway, this dictionary is a welcomed and needed departure from the norm. Moreover, whereas virtually every widely available "Dharma" dictionary is put together by a pseudo-scholar, and is full of laughably incorrect glosses/definitions for a high percentage of terms, this dictionary -- compiled by a genuine scholar of Tibetan -- rarely has off the mark definitions.

I have used Goldstein's new dictionary every day since I bought it from the Amazon. It is undoubtedly the most up-to-date Tibetan dictionary ever published that covers well both the written language as well as the spoken language of the central dialect. However, the publishers seem to have been too much in a hurry, if they had taken a few more months, the result would have been perfect. Some of the cross-references tell you to look the word up under another listing, and if you do it, they tell you to get back to the first one. Sometimes the referred listing is missing altogether! It would have been useful if they had given more Sanskrit equivalents for Buddhist terms as the English translations vary. Regardless of these annoying trivia, the dictionary is indispensable for reading Tibetan newspapers and other materials published after 1950. Numerous illustrative sentences make it easier to understand the meanings. In short, its main strength lies in the modern everyday language (for Buddhist texts you will need a more specialised dictionary). Its coverage is so impressive that the Chinese Minorities Publishing House put indefenetely off the publication of its own dictionary which was due later this year. For any serious student of modern Tibetan: get it, you are going to need it.

Having traveled extensively through Tibet and Sichuan and Qinghai provinces, and lived in Beijing, I was interested in reading a book recommended to me as "a true look". First of all, the comments of the first reviewer are absolutely dead wrong. Having read the Chinese propaganda, and really lived the Chinese propaganda, this is not it. Rather, it is one of the only pieces of scholarship about Tibet in recent history that doesn't fall victim to the Western agenda of portraying Tibet as sympathetically as possible. This is a complex issue, and both sides have done their best to skewer public opinion in their favor; however, to accuse these men of simply being mouthpieces of the Communist party is doing a great disservice to what is truly a breath of fresh air. For a good look at propaganda, go to a Beastie Boys concert. I applaud the editors for keeping politics out of their writing. I highly recommend this text to anyone curious about the real situation in Tibet.

Having read the preceding comments, I find myself in sympathy with all of them to a certain extent (some more than others). Goldstein and Kapstein's informative and challenging edited collection is precisely that - a collection, and includes viewpoints from a variety of academic researchers on Tibet. AS a result, it does not constitute the accepted 'word' on Tibet, nor in fact does it present ANY single viewpoint. Certainly, it does not deserve the accusations heaped on it by the first reviewer, but at the same time, the editors DO come to a particular view of Tibetan political consciousness that not everyone wouyld agree with. That view, if I might summerise, is roughly that the national identity generated around Tibetan Buddhism is not necessarily a prelude to full-blown Tibetan nationalism, and therefore that Tibetan Buddhism can be allowed to flourish by the Chinese authorities without it necessarily generating sympathy for the independence movement). Personally I do not agree with this perspective, and it is clear that the writers are attempting to produce an academic analysis which, as the Tibetan writer Tsering Shakya has recently argued for, cuts a path between the various absolute "black-or-white" political positions that surround the Tibet issue. At the same time, the authors take odds with the widespread view that ALL Buddhism in Tibet is forbidden, and argue that (thankfully) many Tibetans are capable of negotiating a meaningful Buddhist revival despite Chinese communist rule (the extent to which this holds true in the 2 years since this book was published is another issue). As a result, it IS possible to read this collection as proposing an analytical agenda which is not exactly "on-message" in terms of the position of certain pro-Tibet groups, but that is a LONG way from saying that it is Chinese political orthodoxy.

I am surprised by a reader's comments regarding this book as being one of misinformation considering that Melvyn Goldstein is one of the (if not THE) foremost scholar on Tibetan buddhism in the country. One aspect of this book, and Dr. Goldstein's point of reference that must be kept in mind, is that Goldstein separates political Tibet from what he refers to as "ethnic Tibet". He is neither pro-communist China nor pro-political Tibet in his stance, but rather gives an educated and informed look at a political situation that, through a lack of reasonable compromise, has escalted to the point that the Dalai Lama will be forced to make some difficult choices in the next few years. This book outlines both the political and the ethnic situation in Tibet and explains how buddhism has played a major role in both. I feel if you want an informed and balanced view of the situation, than any of Goldstein's books would provide you with the necessary information to form an intelligent argument.