Frank Moraes (1907–1974)

Published in 1960 this is a very fresh account of the escape from Tibet of the current Dalai Lama. The author maintains the interest of the reader as he delves into Tibetan history and its relations with its neighbours, although after a while one gets the sense that he is preparing a brief for an international arbitration on 'who owns' Tibet. Well of course it's the Tibetans, but rather than prove that this has always been the case, or even that it ought to be the case, his diligent account seems to suggest that Tibet's history has always been tied to a lessor or greater degree to China's. As Moraes moves from the historical to the contemporary the targets of his ire - and it is quite vitriolic - becomes clear. It is Communist China, with the emphasis on Communist as much as China. And on India for not defending Tibet and - as he makes clear - for not stemming the communist tide that Moraes sees sweeping through the remainder of the Himalayan states, South Asia, and South East Asia. I'm not sure that Moraes has any particular interest in Tibetans or Tibetan culture at all, or in the plight of the Dalai Lama, but is instead determined to make some point about communist (Soviet as much as Chinese) aggression worldwide. It's more or less as if the US State Department had written - or sponsored - the book, For all of that it's a reasonably good account of events in the 1950's in relation to Tibet, and in respect to relations between India and China, which of course blew up into a frontier war a few years later. Which India comprehensively lost. And it's a book with an increasing relevance as China continues to play out the same issues fifty years later, not just in Tibet, but western China, and in the East and South China Seas.… (mehr)