Tibet in the Western Imagination

Neuhaus, Tom:
Tibet in the Western Imagination / Tom Neuhaus. - Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. - ix, 264 S. : Ill., Kt.
ISBN 978-0-230-29970-2
£ 55,00 / US$ 80,00
DDC: 951.5

Beschreibung
Tibet in the Western Imagination offers a highly readable account of Western writings about Tibet and the Himalayas from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, situating them within a transnational framework. Focusing on British and German sources, it examines how Tibet became a blank canvas on which Europeans could paint their fantasies and fears about developments in the West and across the globe. Comments on the 'forbidden city' of Lhasa, the Dalai Lama, mountaineering on the 'roof of the world' and on ordinary Tibetans often explicitly revealed their authors' thoughts about much wider issues. In the late nineteenth century many travellers were convinced of the superiority of Western rationalism, courage and Christianity. This changed rapidly during the 1920s and 1930s, as they wrote much more frequently about the negative aspects of Western 'civilization', such as modern warfare, urbanization and environmental degradation. Tibet, in turn, began to be represented as a place of great wisdom and truth. [Verlagsinformation]

Inhalt
List of Illustrations. vi
Acknowledgements. vii
List of Abbreviations. ix
Introduction. 1
PART I: REPRESENTATIONS, 1853-1904
   1. Lifting the Veil. 23
   2. Ethnography, Knowledge and Orientalism. 38
   3. Missionaries and the Evils of 'Lamaism'. 52
   4. Science and Exploration. 68
PART II: REPRESENTATIONS, 1904-1947
   5. Developing Diplomacy. 85
   6. Racial and Social Orders. 102
   7. From Religion to Spirituality. 121
   8. Mountains and Men. 143
PART III: LEGACIES, 1947-1959
   9. Coping with 'Loss'. 167
Conclusion and Epilogue. 189
Notes. 204
Bibliography. 237
Index. 261

Autor
TOM NEUHAUS is a lecturer in History at the University of Derby, UK. He has previously worked at the German Historical Institute London, Clare College Cambridge, UK, and the Global Policy Institute. He has carried out research and published on German attitudes towards Western spirituality, transnational missionary communities and on British and German travel to Tibet. Profile page.

Quellen: Palgrave; Macmillan; WorldCat; Amazon (UK); Google Books; Library of Congress
Bildquelle: Palgrave
Bibliographie: [1]

References