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A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State

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If you ever cherished the illusion that Tibet was populated only by saints and holy men of impeccable judgement, the stories recounted in this history will demolish any such belief. Instead, you will develop a realistic appreciation for the achievements and handicaps of the Tibetan system in the first half of this century. This book will enable you to understand why Tibet could not remain independent from China. This is a troubling, fascinating book, full of invaluable historical detail which can be found nowhere else. It is only for those who like their truths unvarnished. Those with a genuine love of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism will develop a maturer love of this extraordinary culture, and those whose notions of the country are based on legends of Shangri-La and Madame Blavatsky's "Great White Brotherhood" will never see Tibet the same way again.

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.

This is, by any standard, a great book. Its level of erudition, rigour and insight are unmatched by anything else on offer about modern Tibetan history. It is an herculean opus, both in scope and in depth. Moreover, the astonishing fact that is also highly readable recommends it even to the reader with a casual interest in Tibet. Its only arguable drawback is, paradoxically, that such a towering achievement is bound to virtually determine the reader's perspective on the topic. In order to get additional and possibly alternative insights, you will have to wade through books, however worthy, whose scholarship doesn't remotely match Goldstein's.

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.

Contrary to what the Tibet Independence crowd would have you believe, doubtlessly shouting against the author with great vituperation, this work is no pro-China, anti-Tibet polemic.

What we learn from this work is the basic fact that there is no Tibet independence today because it historically never was an independent state, and that there was in fact no Chinese invasion. Indeed, the "Demise of the Lamaist State" is not a story of Chinese brutality against a "defenseless country" (where most monks were actually armed soldiers), but of a failure by Tibetans themselves to actually assert a "country" against their centuries-long cultural/political relationship with China, which outweighed everything in contrast to their relationship with India.

Professor Goldstein is a scholar worthy of great respect. He has the scholarly credentials required to even undertake the task of writing a history as he is first and foremost a linguist of Tibetan language; his "Modern Spoken Tibetan: Lhasa Dialect" (1970) is an invaluable resource on Tibetan language. Hence, when he outlines under the "Sources and Methods" in his Preface the Oral Historical Data (xx-xxiii) the reader can be completely confident the author knows his stuff.

And despite the attempts of the Tibetan refugee government in India to stymie his research into the truth of Tibetan history by denying the author access to several manuscripts written by former Tibetan officials (xxiv), Professor Goldstein still succeeds at getting to the truth of events by the depth and breadth of his research; a stunning outcome no doubt unanticipated the Tibet Independence crowd.

As a serious scholar himself, the author presents readers nothing of his own personal opinions about Tibet but simply fills the book with monumental amount of historical documentations. In fact, the central point of this work is to actually seek to answer by first understanding the underlying question "What is/was Tibet?" Thus we the reader learn about Tibet's feudal history, its manorial system ruled by Lama Buddhist clergy, its attempts to modernize, and ultimately its failure to achieve positive and healthy reforms against their own feudal order. These are among the facts the Tibet Independence crowd would rather not be publicly aired even by capable and respectable scholars because it undermines their current political agenda at vilifying China for their own failures, past and current.

Thank you Prof. Goldstein. An excerpted version of this book ought to be required reading for every Western follower of some Tibetan Lama. To puncture the fantasies of devotees would be a service not only to those who believe in guru yoga but to the Tibetan Government in Exile whose moral authority would be enhanced by acknowledging historical truth rather than spreading increasingly transparent propaganda.
Where to begin. This book is both a hidden gem and an eye opener. Though I have been trying to find out about Tibetan history for a long time now, I only just came across the first of Prof. Goldstein's two volumes and am now voraciously consuming the second. When in around 1944 the dobdo (fighting or punk, like street punk) monks of Sera Che college of the great Sera monastery (one of the three ruling monasteries of the current Dalai Lama's Gelugpa sect) threatened to kidnap and sexually molest the students of a recently opened English language school in Lhasa because its modern ways might corrupt the only Buddhist theocracy in the world, they were making a statement about the realities of Tibetan life. The school had been opened by the Regent as one of many feeble attempts to create the skills Tibet might need to meet the challenge of the changing world around them. The gentry quickly withdrew their sons, and the school was closed putting another nail in the coffin of Tibetan preparedness. In the 20th century, if it wasn't the British invading or slicing off trans-Himalayan pieces of Tibet, it was the Chinese ruling mixed Chinese/Tibetan regions of Eastern greater (or inner) Tibet or claiming suzerainty over it all. And even Eastern areas like Kham had little more loyalty to Lhasa (which exploited and abused them) than to China. They spoke different dialects (and we aren't really informed whether they were racially different but there were indigenous peoples in Tibet who were not so enamored of what they felt were invading Lamistic Buddhists).
Little have my Tibetan-Buddhist-following friends told me of the corporal punishment so continuously applied to common offenders and people regarded as treasonous by one or another faction. Capital punishment was carried on even though it had been banned by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1898. The last secular leader who attempt real reform before the Chinese take over had his eyes put out for his efforts and the first Regent for the current Dalai Lama was poisoned in prison by his successor, a very holy man.
The one Tibetan reviewer on Amazon of this book accuses Goldstein of being a Chinese propagandist. Goldstein may come to conclusions that both current and past Chinese claimants to suzerainty over Tibet might embrace. That doesn't invalidate his attempts to portray Tibetan history as best as he can. Goldstein had groundbreaking access to historical records and added to that invaluable interviews with some of the participants in the events (though the government in exile has withheld documents--unlike the Israelis who have had the courage to allow historians access to documents revealing some of their shameful behavior in the wake of 1948 Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001). His interviews break through what might otherwise be a history distorting solidarity with the government in exile. Because his co-respondents thought he possessed the diaries of one of the main actors in the 1930s to 50s, and would be able to catch them out in misstatements, they shared what otherwise was to be protected for political reasons. I used such a technique to great effect when doing interviews years ago with secretive scientists. When they got the sense I knew much more than I was saying, they would fess up about things they otherwise left out or glossed over. Having been the recipient of such tactics on the part of the FBI, I understand their effectiveness. Thank you Prof. Goldstein for prying a layer deeper.
If I have one reservation about the book it is that there are too many primary documents in it. I know that much of what he is presenting is new material and by making the documents available to historians for the first time, Prof. Goldstein is doing a great scholarly service. But for the non-specialist reader, it is a chore to wade through the long excerpts for the pithy sentences which summarize the historical importance of the document. Literarily, I wish he had written a much more narrative book and left the documents for a scholarly compendium. This would have made the book much more accessible and brought it the wider audience it deserves. Such a volume would more usefully aid in an understanding of how Tibet, her current population, her Chinese overlords and her exile claimants fit into the world.
Whether Prof. Goldstein's thesis that reactionary monastic religious elements, for their own sectarian self interest (including monastic revenues--in the 1940s fighting monks brutally murdered a revenue agent who suspended their tax collection because of a poor harvest), prevented Tibet from changing so as to meet the challenge of the outside world is correct or not, he has made a good case for it. In the 1920s the 13th Dalai Lama turned away from modernization because of monastic opposition. His somewhat modernized army was allowed to deteriorate (although there was justifiable fear it would exert political influence). In the crucial period of WWII, factions fought each other. The government often dithered, sticking its head in the sand. It delayed and sometimes did not respond, hoping things would go away. They continued such behavior even though it had led to the 1904 British invasion Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer. Flight to Mongolia, India or China was a major strategy employed by Panchen and Dalai Lamas. Although Tibet was much less isolated than Sikkim or Bhutan, very few Tibetans with power wanted to know about the outside world. Reactionaries would not let the young be trained in foreign languages so crucial to defense. There was opposition to the installation of two way radios, and a landing strip near Lhasa was forbidden. A Tibetan Burma road was stalled. The government and ruling lamas consulted oracles to make decisions (and accused each other or rigging the results). Despite the fact that Lhasa had not been able to vet a Chinese chosen Panchen Lama (a prerogative they insisted was theirs), their oracles conveniently confirmed him when it was clear the Chinese would punish Tibet if Lhasa refused (so much for vaunted transcendent Buddhist/political rule). There were many religious and regional factions who felt that Tibet would be better off under the Chinese than letting British influence creep in and challenge entrenched power or ways of life). The first Regent of the current Dalai Lama appealed for support from China for his attempt to regain the Regency.
It is incumbent upon those whose political interests are threatened by the thesis to show Professor Goldstein wrong. According to Alex McKay, no one has yet to even dented it History of Tibet (Curzon in Association With Iias, 9). Current exile Tibetans and their Western followers are still hawking the ideologies the great monasteries used to justify their continued power. Tibet, they claim, has uniquely conjoined Buddhism and politics into a higher moral synthesis. While the ideas swirling around the Dalai Lama are certainly inspiring and goals toward which to aspire, it would be refreshing if those same proponents would acknowledge the realities of Tibetan history and show how they have intruded in current situation in both positive and negative ways. That commitment to the truth might or might not help their cause but it would align them with the higher morality they claim. As Thomas Becket in T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral" says, "...and striving with political men may make that cause political." And political the situation is whether just the same old thing in monks robes or worldly action held to a higher standard, Prof. Goldstein's book helps illuminate. It may be that, as a small country surrounded by empires (China, Britain, Russia), Tibet would have succumbed no matter what it had done. But as Tito, Vietnam, Cuba, Spain, Israel, Iran and others have shown, if you are willing to prepare and resist, you may have a chance to preserve your way of life. In the case of Tibet, as Prof. Goldstein has shown, it was the way of life which put the country at risk.
Charlie Fisher Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World

I ENJOYED VERY MUCH READING THIS BOOK,GOING DEEP IN THE PECULIAR TRADITION AND UNIQUE WAY OF STATE RULING SYSTEM.A COUNTRY LARGELY IGNORED BY RECENT GENERATIONS IS CAREFULLY DESCRIBED AS WELL AS THE EUROPEANS AND CHINESE AMBITIONS REGARDING THE CONTROL OF THIS STRATEGIC TOP OF THE WORLD AND PACIFIC COUNTRY

This lengthy tome is written with its end in view - literally. Goldstein is a noted apologist for the Chinese, and while the book is meticulously researched, to a certain extent his interpretation of events, and who he chooses to quote or use as a source is revealing. Goldstein views the overthrow of Tibet as some sort of natural progression - ascribing to Maoist positivism, if you like. That is a convenient interpretation from the Chinese point of view.

Shakya Tsering's book is far superior. Goldstein's book would make a handy supply of toilet paper for a few months.

While informative and detailed in certain episodes of Tibetan history, one can't help feeling that the book was written with a predetermined thesis in mind, which therefore dictated which areas to bring into focus and which areas, no matter how important, to gloss over in a paragraph or two. In that respect, I would conclude that it is an incomplete book at best, and a dishonest one if it is intended to be viewed as an unbiased scholarly endeavour. The book succeeds more in echoing much of China's narrative on why Tibet had to be 'liberated' then in portraying a true account of a 2000 year old nation that was dealing with the forces of global shift and modernity 150 years after countries like Japan had undergone them already, but with the added complication of having to deal with two belligerent and expansionist forces on it's borders; Colonial British India to the south and a China to the east that was trying to define itself as a modern nation at the same time and conducting internal debates on whether to establish a homogenous ethnic Chinese state or to lay claim to all areas that had agreements and relations with the Mongol and Manchu dynasties.