An accessible and concise one-volume complete history of Tibet from the seventh-century origins of the Tibetan state to the Chinese colony of today. Historian and China expert Lee Feigon cuts through the romanticism that surrounds the Shangri-La of Western fantasy - at a time when Tibet is in danger of losing its cultural identity under Chinese rule. Feigon chronicles Tibet's history and society from the seventh-century origins of the Tibetan state through Mongol and Manchu rule in China and the advent of Western imperialism to that of Communist China - and the achievements of Tibetan secular and religious leaders down to the Great Fourteenth Dalai Lama of today.