Boulder’s Emily Yeh publishes Taming Tibet with Cornell University Press
Yeh, Emily T. Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development. Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2013.
Emily brings her considerable knowledge and depth of research to a range of fascinating topics that provide a truly rich picture of development in Tibet. Doctor Tsering Shakya wrote that the book “should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary Tibet and China’s relations with periphery regions” and it is clear from the start that he is correct. Filled with rich ethnographic data we find not only detailed theoretical analysis in her book, but also invaluable first person testimony. I am finding that more than anything else, reading Emily’s book is helping me to process the experiences I had in Lhasa in 2007-2008 and in the aftermath of the 2008 riots. In particular, the italicized sections that begin each chapter provide a compelling view of people and their experiences in “China’s Tibet” that I find resonate with my experience much more than many of the other writing out there. Emily provides for us a window into that world that is markedly less mottled than similar accounts. If you study Tibet, or wish to travel there, please do read this book.
