TransHimalaya
Dreshey
Recommended Readings
Seven books on Tibet, China and the wider Himalaya, recommended by the editors.
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In the Margins of Empires: A History of the Chicken Neck
Akhilesh Upadhyay
Penguin Vintage Books · 328pp · ₹499 · 8 November 2025 · ISBN 978-0143466215
This compelling study shifts attention from great-power rivalry to the people of the Himalayan borderlands. Covering Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Sikkim, Darjeeling and India’s North-East, it presents the region as a connected cultural and historical space shaped by centuries of trade, migration, scholarship and religious exchange. Blending analysis with field reporting, the book explores how border communities are responding to intensifying India–China competition while forging their own paths amid the changing geopolitics of the Himalaya.
Akhilesh Upadhyay is the policy lead for the Center for Geostrategic Affairs at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS), Kathmandu, and led the Kathmandu Post as editor-in-chief from 2008 to 2018. His column, View from the Himalaya, for the Hindustan Times, focuses on the near-concurrent rise of China and India.
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China’s Tibet Policy
Prof. Dawa Norbu
Routledge · 484pp · £200 · September 2001 · ISBN 978-0700704743
This important study examines the historical foundations of Sino-Tibetan relations, moving beyond partisan narratives to identify broader patterns and possible pathways for resolving the Tibet issue. Written from a Tibetan perspective, it places the Tibetan question within the wider framework of international politics, exploring the roles of Britain, India, the United States and Russia in shaping Tibet’s modern history and its prospects for a peaceful resolution.
Prof. Dawa Norbu (1949–2006) was born in Tibet a year before the Chinese invasion and escaped with his family in 1959. Educated at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and the University of California, Berkeley, he later taught Central Asian studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and is also the author of Red Star Over Tibet and Tibet: The Road Ahead.
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Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle with China for My Life and My People
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thorsons, HarperCollins · 272pp · ₹400 · March 2025 · ISBN 978-0008774097
His Holiness the Dalai Lama tells the full story of his 75-year struggle with China to save Tibet and its people — from the invasion of 1950, when he was 15, through his first meeting with Mao in Beijing, to his escape to India at 24 and the decades of exile leadership that followed. The book is both a personal testimony and a reminder of Tibet’s unresolved struggle for freedom, sharing his pain alongside his enduring hope for his people’s quest to restore dignity and freedom.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama - Tenzin Gyatso, is the spiritual leader of Tibet. Born in 1935 and recognised as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama at age two, he assumed political leadership of Tibet in 1950 and was the temporal leader of Tibet till be devolved his political authority in 2011 to the Sikyong of the Tibetan government-in-exile. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 among other prestigious awards and honors. He continues to reside in Dharamshala, India and receives numerous people daily at his residence.
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Tibet was Never Part of China since Antiquity
Hong Shang Lau
Optimum Publishing International · 1,268pp · C$80 · February 2026 · ISBN 978-0888903785
As a signatory to League of Nations and United Nations covenants, China promised not to conquer new territories after 1919 — so after the People’s Republic conquered Tibet in 1950, it needed to argue that Tibet had always been inseparable from China. Drawing on official Chinese sources, imperial records, treaties and eyewitness accounts, Dr Lau dismantles that narrative, revealing a far more complex and independent Tibetan history than Beijing’s account allows.
Hong Shang Lau (劉漢城) is an independent historian specialising in East Asian history and Tibet’s contested status, whose work is widely cited by Tibet advocacy groups, academics and policymakers.
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The History of Bhutan
Karma Phuntso
Penguin Vintage Books · 680pp · ₹999 · April 2013 · ISBN 978-8184003116
As Bhutan attracts growing international attention for its democratic transition, unique development model and rich cultural heritage, it remains surprisingly understudied. This landmark work offers the first comprehensive history of Bhutan in English, combining traditional sources with modern scholarship to trace the country’s historical evolution alongside its geography, culture, society and political development.
Karma Phuntso is a leading scholar of Bhutan who has taught Buddhism and Bhutan Studies in the country and abroad, and has worked as a research fellow at Cambridge University and CNRS, Paris, since 2003. He is the founder of the Loden Foundation, a leading educational charity in Bhutan.
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The Mongol World
Timothy May & Michael Hope, eds. (with a contribution by Ulambayar Erdenebat)
Routledge · 1,100pp · £47.99 · February 2015 · ISBN 978-1032244839
Drawing on multidisciplinary research across multiple languages, this volume examines how Mongol rule shaped the course of Eurasian history from Central Europe to East Asia between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Moving beyond political narratives, it explores the empire’s administration, society, religion, science and art, with contributions from 58 leading scholars offering a comprehensive assessment of the Mongol Empire and its enduring influence across Eurasia.
Timothy May & Michael Hope, eds. (with a contribution by Ulambayar Erdenebat) is Professor of Central Eurasian History at the University of North Georgia and a scholar of Mongol military history. Michael Hope is Associate Professor of History at Yonsei University, Korea, specialising in the political and cultural history of the Ilkhanate.
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We Measure the Earth with our Bodies
Tsering Yangzom Lama
Bloomsbury Publishing India · 368pp · ₹699 · January 2023 · ISBN 978-9356402256
Spanning five decades and multiple generations, this novel follows two Tibetan sisters who flee Tibet after the Chinese invasion, and the lives of their descendants across Nepal and Canada. Blending personal struggle with the broader experience of displacement, it offers a powerful, intimate portrait of the Tibetan exile community and the bonds that connect people to family, culture and homeland.
Tsering Yangzom Lama holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from the University of British Columbia. Born and raised in Nepal, she has since lived in Vancouver, Toronto and New York City; her writing has appeared in the Malahat Review, Grain, Vela, LaLit and Himal Southasian.
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