Customer Reviews

The Making of Modern Tibet

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The author worte in his introduction that "I have made every effort to use materials from most, if not all, contending points of view." The book clearly live up to his promise. This is one book filled with facts. On many pages one will find facts along with both the Chinese and the Tibetan contentions. It's history with muliple view points. The reader is therefore given a vast scope of information to contemplate the events.

The book covers Tibet's history from back in the days Buddhism and the Dalai Lamas first came into place in Tibet, to the turmoils of the 1950's, to the current situation, all in details that one can not find without vast research.

Facts are solely missing in the on-going debate about China and Tibet. Grunfeld puts in the grunt-work and makes available to us a detailed, easy-to-read, and thought-provoking history/analisis of Tibet in the 20th century. As a Western scholar who's been condemned at times by both Beijing and Dharamsala, he must be getting something right.

Put this on your bookshelf... it will provide a perspective toward Tibet you might not have had before. You may want to balance this out with Tsering Shakya's equally-good volume.

While this book is well written (the writing style and information make for a good read), and the author seems to have performed a good deal of research, this is far from an impartial history of Tibet as the author claims. After the author makes this claim in the opening pages he commences with a look at the nature of Tibetan society prior to 1959. While uncomfortable for those sympathetic to the Tibetan nation, this opening expose is quite interesting. The author points out, with some decent source citations, that far from being the "Shangri-la" that many imagine, pre-1959 Tibet was a nation where the majority of people lived a very destitute, hard existence, where political and legal rights for many were almost unknown, where a type of feudal system existed that was on the one hand supportive of the Buddhist religion but on the other permitted very harsh punishment meted out by the ruling elite. This is believeable as far as it goes. However, when one reads the balance of the book one wonders whether one is really getting the whole story even in this opening chapter.

The chapter dealing with the early history of Tibet seems innocuous and fairly balanced, although even here one begins to see that the author is focused on proving one of his central tenets - that Tibet was never really an independent nation and for most of its history maintained some filial relationship with China. This becomes noticeable when one reaches the great majority of the book, which deals with the Twentieth Century. Here the author's bias comes forth. With each succeeding chapter, telling Tibet's story chronologically (the first edition stopped in 1985 when it was published, but this revised edition runs to 1995), the author's pro-China sympathies become ever clearer. This becomes very annoying after awhile. I am an avid footnote reader so I checked his footnotes throughout. There are many citations to secondary sources which in themselves are suspect (Chinese popular publications and official newspapers for instance). In some cases, particularly dealing with the 1959 revolt and subsequent events, some of the author's most anti-Tibetan statements do not contain citations to sources at all. He even reverts in his writing (accidentally?) to using terms for the Dalai Lama and the exile government that are used in official Chinese government communiques (i.e. "The Dali Clique" and "the oligarchs"). He becomes free with his opinions questioning Tibetan sources and trying to discredit them but he quotes from official Chinese sources without comment or criticism. I gather that he felt that he had written an "impartial" history by merely citing to sources from both sides, but this is not the case if he takes the Tibetans (and their allies in the US, India and elsewhere) to task but says nothing of the intentions of the Chinese official writings from which he freely quotes and cites. Amazingly, while he details in several chapters the alleged wrongs perpetrated on many Tibetans by their ruling elite, monks, aristocracy, western governments, etc. he glosses over the effects of the Cultural Revolution on Tibet. He only ackowledges that many monasteries were destroyed, but makes no effort to try to calculate the number of Tibetans killed, jailed and tortured during this time. On the other hand he makes a tremendous effort to discredit the data from the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exiles concerning the number of refugees who have fled Tibet since 1959.

Oddly, in the very last chapter of "conclusions" the author makes his most critical statements concerning China's rule in Tibet and the issue of Tibet's autonomy. This comes across as too little and too late to make up for a very stilted narrative overall.

If you want a general overview of Tibet, particularly its post-1950 history, from a Chinese point of view this book is pretty good. But for the pleasant writing style and a biased but thorough job of research and citation I would have given this book a 2 or 1. Take this work as an academically researched polemic but there is much more information to obtain to get "the whole picture".

This is an excellent introduction to modern Tibetan history and its historical relationship to China. It is well written and well supported. It covers the socio political and economic history of Tibet from its earliest dealings with imperial China to modern times.

First, a little polemic. Ignore all the poor amazon reviews of it. I have read every one of them here and not a single one offers a shred of evidence countering any major claim in it or explains where the counter evidence is to be found. They are just emotion and fallacy laden screeds. Like previous positive reviews, this review will likely get negative rating not because of the content of what was said but out of spite from the pro-Tibet crowd that anyone would say something contrary to their accepted dogma.

Read the book, check out its sources and see for yourself how well researched and rigorously it is argued. The objections from the pro-Tibet camp who have denounced this book and all books even slightly critical of the Tibetan Government in Exile (or TGIE) or their supporters in the west do not and cannot focus on any substantive issues. They instead focus on character assassinations of the authors. Read them for this book and see that they do not make one substantive counterclaim supported by any evidence, just mere assertions, snide remarks and insinuations against Grunfeld's motivations. They claim that he is a communist and cannot read Tibetan. Is that best they can do to discredit Grunfeld's well respected reputation as a peer-reviewed published scholar of Sino-Tibetan history? Notice that his detractors posting reviews here and elsewhere also are almost always biased from the start and are either exiled Tibetans or western members of pro-Tibetan lobby groups, not peers of Grunfeld from the academic community on Tibet and China. One of the reviewers mentioned John Powers's book which spent considerable effort trying to discredit this book and Grunfeld himself using absolutely irrelevant arguments. But Powers is not even a historian or Tibetologist but an expert on South Asian *religion*. Do yourself a favor and read both books and check their citations sections and see if Powers can refute anything Grunfeld claims without resorting to mere innuendo and suggestion.

It's also interesting that even Powers claims in his book that the best overview of the Sino-Tibetan history and modern political situation is from Melvyn Goldstein, another author who is constantly (perhaps even more so than Grunfeld) the target of pro-Tibet ire and character assassination. In my opinion, this book together with Goldstein's books and papers, and Barry Sautman's books and papers represent the most accurate, comprehensive and least biased of all the books on Sino-Tibetan issues. Powers also basically admits that Goldstein's books make the Chinese side more credible in the end than the pro-Tibet side on most major issues but Goldstein is sometimes even more explicitly anti- pro-Tibet rhetoric than Grunfeld. Goldstein is possibly the most prolific Tibetologist of all time and considered one of the most respected scholars on Tibet in the world among other Tibetologists and historians of central Asia. Like Grunfeld he also criticizes the Tibetan Government in Exile, the Dalai Lama and independence groups for the lies they have spread and for the inability to resolve much of the issues between China and the Dalai Lama. And like Grunfeld, he supports his claims with rigorous documentation exposing the lies of the pro-Tibet groups and a history they do not wish others to know (such as the fabricated lies related to the Tibetan genocide hoax, the once hidden connections between the TGIE to the CIA, the modern socio economic conditions which Tibetans inside Tibet live under, the status of religion and language inside modern Tibet, the legal status of China's claims of sovereignty over Tibet, etc).

Read this wonderful book yourself and check out its citations for accuracy and then see that all of the poor reviews given so far cannot make relevant counter claims supported by solid evidence. Also read Goldstein's well researched books and papers on Tibet. Those who try to discredit these scholars are not themselves scholars and do not bring any facts to the table. Their vision is mostly clouded through the murky lens of blind religious reverence for the Dalai Lama or Tibetan Buddhism. This book is comprehensive in its dealings with issues between Tibet and China and it is not biased. Certainly, like Goldstein and Barry Sautman (another well respected scholar on the Sino-Tibetan issues and victim to groundless pro-Tibet vitriol), most of the major claims do show that the Chinese side has been less inaccurate with their claims, but that does not show bias when it is well supported with evidence, something seemingly alien to the other side.

I am so glad that I bought this book. This one book has taught me more about Tibet than the nine other books (including Dalai Lama's Freedom in Exile) I have, combined. This book provides information from all sides, this wealth of information is what I have been looking for. I am now using this book as a guide for further study. I have ordered two more books quoted in this one: The Struggle for Modern Tibet & Buddha's Not Smiling. The former provides the perspective of a poor Tibetan whose peers made up 95% of Tibet before 1950; the latter interests me because I know nothing about the conflict between Tibetan Buddhist sects.

This book is not without faults. The author has provided ample source citations; however, he can do better still. One example, he quoted statements of a British doctor who treated Tibetans with venereal disease (page 19), but a citation is not provided. This is my only complaint. I have read all the reviews here before purchasing it and I found the criticisms unjustified. In a few chapters, usually in the end, the author concludes that both parties (Beijing and Dalai Lama) have provided false information but, "China appears to have fabricated the least." The author sometimes also appears to be speaking for Beijing when rebutting the accounts from the Dalai Lama, the Western and Indian media. But each time he provides evidence to back his statement. In other words, he is not pro-Beijing; he is just arguing for the truth like an investigative journalist. The author is not soft on Beijing; he has provided some damning quotes I have ever read.

I applaud the author for having the courage to provide a book that is balanced and critical on both sides. This does not endear him to the Chinese leaders or the supporters of the Dalai Lama. Most authors take the easy path - to tell the Tibetan story - which is how my other nine books are written. But this approach doesn't help anyone to fully understand the complicated ties between China and Tibet. The Chinese have committed atrocities against Tibetans in the latter half of the 20th century, but the Tibetans are just as guilty. When Tibet was strong, for more than two centuries, its army invaded China and even captured the Chinese capital. Communism is repressive but countries with a democratic system are also guilty of colonizing other peoples while suppressing its own citizens. Too many people take the easy black and white attitude which helps no one. I am so glad that this book is an exception.

If such a book appeared today about Blacks or Jews there would, without doubt, be tremendous public outcry. Tom Grunfeld writes that Tibetan mothers licked their babies as they emerged from the womb - like animals. He goes on to specify that Tibetan were cruel, dirty, ignorant, syphilitic (90% of the population suffering from venereal diseases according to TG) sexual degenerates who were observed making love on rooftops in full public view. Clearly this is intended to portray Tibetans as barbaric, subhuman, even bestial, thereby justifying Communist Chinese rule in Tibet as necessary and civilizing. Grunfeld's description of Chinese rule in Tibet completely omits to mention the million odd people executed, starved, or beaten and tortured to death in the numerous Maoist campaigns, nor does he mention the "Famine", the greatest famine in human history, that in China and Tibet wiped out from 30 to 60 million people, and which was man-made.

Grunfeld lacks the minimal qualifications to write a history of Tibet. He is unable to speak or read basic Tibetan or even Chinese, and his book is full of rudimentary mistakes, schoolboy "howlers", that would be hilarious if the fundamental premise of the work was not so deeply troubling. Grunfeld provides no primary Tibetan or Chinese sources. He further does not even utilize the significant body of scientific and scholarly articles and monographs on Tibetan history that have appeared (in English and other European languages) over the last twenty-five years or so. In fact this "history" relies on Chinese propaganda material (in English) and on often outdated secondary literature, derived largely from negative colonial and missionary writings on Tibet.

This book is a propaganda piece to justify the Chinese occupation and genocide in Tibet.

The first chapter, titled "Tibet as it used to be", is basically 33 pages of Tibet-bashing. Virtually every paragraph is spun to cast Tibet and Tibetans in the worst possible light. For example on page 22 a paragraph begins "In addition to herbs and natural treatments, some of which were quite effective...." The rest of the paragraph is about the use of holy people's urine and excrement as medicine. No coverage is given to effective herbal and natural treatments in this paragraph or any other of the 5 paragraphs in the section on health care, but there is plenty of coverage of remedies based on superstition.

Grunfeld has some interesting things to say about Buddhism. He spends a paragraph pointing out that calling the Dalai Lama a "Living Buddha" or a God King" is technically wrong (p.11). He feels it necessary to point out that "Living Buddha" is a contradiction in terms because a Buddha goes on to Nirvana. I suppose it was too much for him to admit that it is a useful way of describing a Bodhisattva, even if technically incorrect (He had accurately described the Buddhist concept of a Bodhisattva in the previous paragraph). He also makes the curious assertion that a god's manifestation on earth is neither the god nor the god's representative, thus "God King" is wrong. Perhaps he has never heard of Christ, Zeus as a bull, Vishnu as Krishna, etc.? He also manages a half truth in relating the story of Siddharta. He says that Siddharta rejected his life of privilege and left it, but omits mentioning that Siddharta also rejected his subsequent life of poverty, advocating a middle path. It seems that Grunfeld's purpose was not to accurately portray the Buddhist religion, but merely to point out the hypocrisy of a privileged Buddhist priestly class.

Grunfeld does finally manage to say something nice about Tibetans on page 29: They didn't actually kill people to obtain human parts for religious artifacts. The rest of the page lists evidence for human sacrifice persisting up to 1959. Grunfeld says that while the evidence is circumstantial, he concludes that human sacrifice did occur, although he graciously admits that the sacrifices must have been infrequent.

Those are some samples from 6 pages of notes I took on the first chapter's horror stories, spins, half truths, overgeneralizations, etc. The second chapter begins by lamenting how difficult it is to determine Tibet's history because Tibet only developed a "formal and widely accepted written language" in the 7th century AD, pointing out that China and India have much older civilizations (Oh those backward Tibetans). I figured that the next 200 odd pages would be similar to the last 30 and decided to stop reading. The half truths and nitpicks about the easily verifiable parts of the first chapter (Budhism) lead me to question the value of the rest of it. Also, at the time of the book's publication, Grunfeld had not been to Tibet, and I understand from other reviews he had no understanding of the Tibetan nor Chinese languages. I can get information on the topics covered in Grunfeld's book from less biased sources: Lee Feigon's "Demystifying Tibet" for an overview of pre-20th Century Tibetan history. "Demystifying Tibet", Melvyn Goldstein's "the Snow Lion and the Dragon", and Tsering Shakya's "Dragon in the land of Snows" address 20th Century history and politics. For life in Tibet prior to the Chinese takeover "Demystifying Tibet", "A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phuntso Wangye" (as told to Goldstein, Sherap, and Siebenschuh), and Heinrich Harrer's "Seven Years in Tibet" give a few snapshots, though I don't know of a description of Tibetan life as concentrated or organized as Grunfeld's assault (I'm no expert; it probably exists).

A few things could have been done to improve the first chapter. It could have been more balanced, especially the parts on Buddhist religion, which are fairly well known and easily verified. Failing that, a more accurate title would have helped - something along the lines of "The backwardness, hypocrisy, and evils of pre-1959 Tibet". This would make the half-truths and nitpicking in support of positions less objectionable and the reader would know from the start that the chapter would be limited to the negative and that he would have to look to other works for a balanced view. This might even attract those readers who are aware that their view of Tibet as a paradise on Earth is not accurate and are looking to learn about some of the negative aspects. A smear job badly disguised as an objective description should only repel them.

I gave the book (the first chapter really) two stars instead of one because most of Grunfeld's horror stories are referenced. At least he's not making them up. Also, some of the references may provide fruitful further reading. If you think that Tibetans are sub-human, you might enjoy the first chapter. I can't recommend it to anyone else, and I didn't read further for reasons described above.

This is a great book! It is very balanced and favors no particular view of Tibet, instead it constantly looks at every aspect of Tibetan culture, history, and international relations to describe the situation of Modern Tibet. Although it is full of facts, quotes, and various academic tools, the writing style is quite gripping, and it is not too cluttered with information - you won't need to put it down, and you won't want to either!

A very clear, well-documented presentation of Tibet and its history. It is especially helpful in explaining the events that led up to the Chinese invasion. This is a very helpful text for people seeking to understand the Hows and Whys of the way Tibetan society is organized today.

The best analysis of Grunfeld's book can be found in an excellent study of Tibetan historiography entitled History as Propaganda, Tibetan Exiles versus the People's Republic of China, by John Powers, Oxford University Press, 2004. Powers discusses all the major histories and scholarship on Tibet, and at endnote 30 says the following about Grunfeld's book:

"For example, although he claims to have considered all points of view, he admits that he does not read Tibetan and has not looked at any Tibetan-language sources. Given that this is purportedly a book that presents a balanced account of Tibetan history, this is a significant omission. Moreover, although he claims in several places to be representing what Tibetans in Tibet actually believe, he gives no indication that he has ever visited Tibet (and admits that he does not speak Tibetan), and so he does not appear to have any way of ascertaining what Tibetans think. Although he claims to have a background in Chinese studies, he also does not list any Chinese-language works in his lengthy bibliography, and judging by the sources he cites, he appears to have mainly relied on outdated secondary materials."

Anyone who is interested in a balanced view of the history of modern Tibet would do well to avoid Grunfeld's questionable book altogether and to look instead to the works of scholars like Melvyn Goldstein, whose A History of Modern Tibet, the Demise of the Lamaist State, 1913-1951 is thorough, solidly-researched, and generally even-handed -- and also does not present "old Tibet" as if it were some sort of pre-lapsarian paradise. The second volume of Goldstein's history, entitled A History of Modern Tibet, Vol. 2: The Calm Before the Storm: 1951-1955, is due to be released in August 2007.

Anyone interested in the history of modern Tibet should also read the Powers book cited above, for an overview and assessment of the available scholarship on the subject.