High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture

by Hugh E. Richardson, Michael Aris (Introduction)

This texts brings together some 65 contributions by Hugh Richardson to Tibetan Studies written over the course of nearly 60 years. Part 1 contains 27 articles on the crucial and formative phase of Tibet's history in the 7th to 9th centuries AD. In Part 2 nine articles focus on key historical sites and incriptions dating mostly from the early period. Part 3 reproduces fouteen articles on later history down to the 20th century, including a number of studies on Chinese and Western involvement with Tibet. Part 4 is a reprint of Richardson's Tibetan Precis (Calcutta, Govt. of India PRess, 1945), a secret publication containing classified information summarizing British relations with Tibet. The volume concludes in Part 5 with fourteen articles in which the author provides his own personal testimonies and recollections of life in traditional Tibet and his reactions to its subsequent fate. This work should be of interest to both specialists and non-specialists.

777 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1998

About the author

Hugh Edward Richardson CIE OBE FBA (22 December 1905 – 3 December 2000[2]) was an Indian Civil Service officer, British diplomat and Tibetologist. His academic work focused on the history of the Tibetan empire, and in particular on epigraphy. He was among the last Europeans to have known Tibet and its society before the Chinese invasions which began in 1950.