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Author: San Van Schaik

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Nobody can agree on precisely where the border of Tibet lies, which is perhaps fitting for a country through which global powers have swept for all of its 2000 year history, and whose spiritual message has now permeated worldwide. Today, Tibet is in the throes of negotiating repressive measures, embracing modernity and trying to re establish a strong Tibetan national identity. The author here traces the history of Tibet from the glory days of the Tibetan Empire in the seventh century, through the spread of Buddhism across Asia and the rise of the Dalai Lamas, to its patron priest relationships under Kublai Khans Mongol rule in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and trade with European pashas. The survey continues with Tibets entanglement in the Great Game between Britain and Russia in the early twentieth century, the brief proclamation of its independence, falling under Chinese Communist rule in the 1950s, and the subsequent troubled history of more recent decades.