November 27, 2009
Warren W. Smith Jr. has emerged as the preeminent writer on
Tibetan history and Sino-Tibetan relations. Smith, a research historian with
Radio Free Asia's Tibet Service in Washington, D.C., is also the author of Tibet
Nation, and China’s Tibet?
His newest work solidifies that position by offering the most comprehensive account available of Tibet’s resistance during the buildup to the Beijing Olympics – an uprising that challenged China’s claim that it has a legitimate right to colonize and suppress the Tibetan people. Smith relates Beijing’s paranoid reaction to the uprising in fascinating detail.
The organization of the book is extremely helpful for readers who would like to extricate fact from fiction. He begins with a deeply knowledgeable chronology of the 2008 revolt and moves on to examine China’s reaction, not only to the Tibetan protestors but international criticism as well.
Especially insightful is Smith’s examination of the traditional themes of Chinese propaganda, used with tremendous success since the 1950s.
Finally, Tibet’s Last Stand? convincingly reveals that – far from becoming more lenient in response to Tibetan discontent – China has determined to eradicate Tibetan opposition internally and coerce the international community (including Nepal) to conform to China’s version of Tibetan history and reality.
Anyone who is genuinely interested in the Tibetan issue of the nature of modern Chinese nationalism must read Tibet’s Last Stand?, a seminal and mesmerizing book.
Available through Rowman & Littlefield Publishers click here
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