"The Unknown Country": Tibet in the Western Imagination, 1850 - 1950

Download or read book "The Unknown Country": Tibet in the Western Imagination, 1850 - 1950 written by Jacob Smigrod Dingman and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the late nineteenth century, very little about Tibet was known in the West. In fact, Western knowledge of Tibet developed during the waning of imperial Chinese power there and with Tibet's brief "independence period" (1904 - 1950). This meant that when Westerners went to Asia with their own purposes in mind, the cultural material they brought back from Tibet was highly influenced by its bid for a new geopolitical position. Westerners, along with Tibetan diplomats, thus formed a network that actively promoted an idea of Tibet as an exotic, mystical realm whose entire definition was connected with its Buddhist identity.