Classroom of the Elite: Volume 08

龍在雪域是西方第一本西藏現代通史。茨仁夏加以許多未曾面世的資料完成這本歷史著作。他打破一般人的觀念,說明西藏並不是不受國際局勢影響的香格里拉。一九四七年英國撤出印度後,西藏因為它特殊的地理與歷史背景成為中國、英國、印度、美國四國角力的舞台,冷戰之後更牽動到民主與共產陣營的紛爭。 茨仁夏加以持平的立場,根據詳盡的資料描述中共入侵西藏的過程以及西藏高層舉棋不定的決策所犯下的錯誤。除了政治與國際關係,作者也關注一般平民的處境,描寫局勢變動對他們造成的影響以及他們如何回應;西藏各地的族群與階級差異讓現代西藏的發展更加複雜。此外龍在雪域也首度披露以下事件:美國中情局涉入西藏事務、印度總理尼赫魯在中國入侵西藏時所扮演的角色、文化大革命時西藏權力鬥爭與民眾抗爭的過程、達賴喇嘛與中國政府在一九七○年代末期到一九八○年初期談判的經過。 (original title: Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947) "This definitive history of modern Tibet - based entirely on unpublished primary sources and written by a Western-educated Tibetan author - shatters the popular perception of Tibet as an isolated Shangri-la unaffected by broader international developments and rises above the simplistic dualism so often encountered in accounts of Tibet's contested recent history."--BOOK JACKET. "With careful and thorough documentation, the author details the Chinese depredations of Tibet and the many concomitant shifts in policy and political fortune. However, he also reveals the failures of the Tibetan leadership's myopic and divided strategies to engage the Chinese by on the one hand pursuing a policy of coexistence with communist China and on the other trying to preserve her unique identity as a Buddhist state under the leadership of the Dalai Lama."--BOOK JACKET. On 15 August 1947, India became an independent nation and inherited the political influence and the privileges that Britain had gained in Tibet.