Tibet's Fate

Reviews / Votes

Insightful and inspirational, this book captures the author's lifetime support of the Tibetan cause, telling not only of his experiences during the independence movement but also the testimonies of Tibetans and how their lives were impacted. A must read for the younger generation of Tibetans, Tibetan activists and anyone who is interested in the Tibetan diaspora. -- Jianglin Li, Author of Tibet in Agony: Lhasa 1959 Erudite and uncompromised. Tibet's Fate is part memoir and part history - a unique, realist tour of contemporary Tibet. -- Carole McGranahan, University of Colorado, Boulder For some four decades, Warren Smith has been a deeply engaged participant in the cause of Tibetan freedom, serving for almost a quarter century as the only non-Tibetan member of the Tibetan branch of Radio Free Asia. In Tibet's Fate, drawing on the experiences of Tibetans in exile and his personal memoirs, Smith offers a unique perspective on the movement with which he has been so intimately engaged. This is an essential work on contemporary Tibetan affairs. -- Matthew Kapstein, Professor emeritus, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris In a time when our hearts are lifted by the heroic resistance of the men and women of Ukraine against Putin's vicious neo-imperialist invasion of their lives and lands, it seems compellingly patriotic as a citizen of the earth to be spellbound by Warren' Smith's searing account of the century-long outrage of the Chinese communist party's ongoing, completely unwarranted, criminal genocide of the people of Tibet and despoliation of its land and the headwaters of every single one of Asia's major rivers. In telling his fascinating story, he gives voice to a Solzhenytsin-like Tibetan collective of witnesses of the inhumanly murderous atrocities and rapacious robberies committed by Chinese individuals, military and civilian ideological fanatics, against the free men, women, children, animals, trees, plants, lands and waters of a Tibet that we can see vanishing before our eyes. At the same time, Smith himself describes in vivid prose his personal adventure and life-long exploration of the Land of Snow Peaks, and so takes us along with him to see the majesty and beauty of the vast plateau-big as the whole of the U.S. west of the Mississippi-and moves our hearts to compassionate amazement at the astounding endurance of its colorful, kind, intelligent, spiritual and yet earthy Tibetan people. Smith's deeply informed, heartfelt, and historically realistic grim conclusion about the fate of Tibet and its all-too-unacknowledged human nation of real people stirs us to open our hearts to them, to stand with them in whatever ways we can, great or small. Smith's riveting Tibet's Fate takes on a gripping journey and leaves us with an existential question: when will it be on our planet that an ongoing genocide is one too many? That can admit of no one's rationalizations for letting it happen? -- Robert A.F Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Professor Emeritus, Columbia University Tibet's Fate is a tour de force that expertly weaves together Tibetan accounts, autobiography, history, and policy analysis into a highly engaging treatment of what is an increasingly marginalized topic: Tibet's situation. Warren Smith has displayed, yet again, his acumen as a writer, analyst, and Tibet-watcher. -- Tsering Topgyal, University of Birmingham