Songtsen Library has translated and will publish the four-volume work of Professor Melvyn C. Goldstein, the most authoritative scholar of the modern Tibetan History. The year 1989 was a landmark year for modern Tibetan history, for it was in that year that Melvyn C. Goldstein’s “A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State” was published. It was the first time that a Tibetan historical work brought together a large corpus of data from published books and articles, documents of the British India Government and that of the American government, manuscripts and interviews at Dharamsala’s Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, and interviews and personal communications with officials of the traditional government and other knowledgeable persons in India, Tibet, and the West. This first volume which begins in 1913 and ends with the 1950 invasion of Tibet and the 1951 Seventeenth Point Agreement, was translated, and published by Songtsen Library in 2018.
Using the same methodology, but now with materials from Tibet and China, Goldstein published, A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 2: The Calm Before the Storm: 1951-1955. The book gave a detailed account of the Seventeen Point Agreement and attempts and problems of Tibet and China trying to live together. The Dalai Lama returned from China in 1955 in an optimistic mood. This book was translated and published by Songtsen Library in 2021.
The library is now happy to present the translation of another tour de force by Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 3: The Storm Clouds Descent, 1955-1957. During this period, the optimism of 1955 is now over and this book details the revolt in Eastern Tibet, the rise of Tibetan resistance and relations with the CIA, the Dalai Lama’s visit to India and the China’s pull back on reforms.
In 2024, Songtsen Library will publish another well documented masterpiece by Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 4: In the Eye of the Storm: 1957-1959. This volume begins with the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet in 1957 and hopes of a new beginning. It describes the further developments of the US backed Chushigangdru resistance movement and the deteriorating political situation which ultimately leads to the Lhasa uprising the and Dalai Lama’s flight into exile in India