| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Gray Tuttle. Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press. 2005. Pp. xviii, 337. $35.00.

In this stand-out book, Gray Tuttle reminds us of something that is often difficult to remember: that Chinese (that is, "Han" Chinese) and Tibetans have a shared history of rather positive experiences. Since 1959, this history has been used and abused by a variety of interested parties, a manipulation that renders it difficult to "remember." As far as the average Western (American) Tibetophile is concerned, "Tibet" is an enchanting entity, bereft of history, suffering under the yoke of an alien and brutal (and communist) power. Furthermore, the "celebritization" of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism by Hollywood figures and Western adherents of the Dalai Lama makes this highly simplified image resistant to nuance. And of course, the harsh realities of the Chinese presence—to use a deceptively neutral word—in Tibet certainly do not offer any hints or motivation for inquiry into the possibility of a history of Chinese-Tibetan cooperation and shared past. For their part, defenders of China's claims on Tibet highlight the long history of Tibet as a Chinese dependency and of the relationship between the imperial rulers in Beijing and Tibetan Buddhism. Fully aware of these pitfalls and traps, as is evident from his splendid postscript, Tuttle approaches this complicated history with courage and clarity of perspective and he provides us with an important and learned study.

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