Tibet – In a Nutshell

I’m becoming addicted to this Nutshell series, which for someone who regularly rails against audiobooks being abridged sounds inconsistent. It isn’t. These informative little gems are specifically written for a single CD (we’ve had Afghanistan, Darwin and karma so far, the renaissance and French revolution are on their way), the idea being to whet your appetite for further study. Gregson’s encapsulated overview of Tibetan history, geography, traditions, religion, politics and culture covers everything the well-informed tourist needs to know. Locked in by the highest mountain ranges on earth, Tibet’s nomadic tribes have retained their centuries-old lifestyle. They live on barley, yak’s butter and tea, wear shaggy woollen wraparound cloaks, embroidered hats with sheepskin ear flaps and yak-hide boots with turned-up toes. Yaks are to Tibetans what reindeer are to Lapps: food, clothing, transport, fuel. I’ve visited Tibetan lamaseries, where smiling monks wearing huge yellow bonnets like Widow Twanky offered tea laced with rancid yak’s butter, which they then used to polish the wooden floor. In the seventh century, King Songtsän Gampo declared Buddhism the national religion, and in the eighth century the frontiers of Tibet stretched from Butan to Xian in China. Buddhism took hold, but the empire was shortlived. Tibet was subsequently invaded by Mongols, Turks, British and Chinese. It is 40 years since the Dalai Lama fled the Chinese destruction and occupation of his country with little hope of reconciliation or return. Life, fate, has not been kind to the gentle Buddhists of Burma and Tibet.

Tibet is a high-altitude “land apart”, home to snow leopards, holy mountains and centuries-old Buddhist monasteries. It’s presented here from its beginnings, through its long history of struggle, to its inclusion in China’s 1949 Great Motherland, then the 2008 demonstrations as Han Chinese have grown to become the majority in Tibet’s northern provinces.