Nomads of Eastern Tibet represents perhaps the last in a genre of “salvage ethnography” describing traditional Tibetan societies that have been irreversibly transformed through their incorporation into the People's Republic of China. The book is based on Rinzin Thargyal's extensive ethnographic and life history interviews with refugees who were former inhabitants of Zilphukhog, a part of the Dege kingdom on the eastern sector of the Tibetan Plateau. Originally written as a thesis for the degree of magister artium in social anthropology (roughly equivalent to a doctorate in the American system) at the University of Oslo, the work remained as an unpublished manuscript for more than two decades until, through the prodding of renowned scholar Toni Huber, Rinzin Thargyal revised and updated the material to create this valuable monograph. Huber's introduction is helpful in two respects: First, he situates the book in the Tibetan studies literature, noting its important contribution to our understanding of regional variations in Tibetan political systems. Second, he introduces the author: a Tibetan who was born in Kham and came to Norway for education after living the life of a refugee in Bhutan, Nepal, and India.

Nomads of Eastern Tibet should not be evaluated in comparison to today's more “problem-oriented” ethnographic research. Rather, it needs to be understood in relation to the time it was produced (early 1980s). As such, it is more descriptive and holistic than most monographs published by anthropologists today. The holistic nature of the book is evident in its organization. The sequence of chapters centers on the history of Zilphukhog, labor service (taxation), animal husbandry, trade, transhumance, household organization, marriage and kinship, birth and death, the political environment, and social organization.

The work is clearly influenced by the author's mentor, Fredrik Barth. For example, Rinzin Thargyal focuses his analytical attention on the ways in which the cumulative choices made by individuals in relationship to one another help define the social system within which they live. In particular, Thargyal details the dyadic relationship between lords (dpon) and dependents (‘khor pa), and discusses how this asymmetrical relationship was negotiated in practice. The author describes the broader political environment of eastern Tibet during the early part of the twentieth century as a patchwork of polities that provided continuous opportunities for people to move elsewhere in order to improve their prospects in life. He argues that if a lord exceeded a minimum tolerance threshold—for example, by imposing an exorbitant tax burden—a subject could deprive him of his labor by defecting to another lord. Chronic labor shortages effectively tempered the power of lords and helped establish a more complementary and interdependent relationship that balanced the interests of both parties. The basis for a lord's prestige, in Thargyal's estimation, was not wealth per se, but the ability to both retain his own dependents and expand his power base by attracting defectors from other polities. As a case study, Zilphukhog provides an example of one lord's success in facilitating the demographic expansion of his realm by providing favorable conditions (e.g., the loaning of milch animals) to ensure the creation and economic viability of new households.

In summary, this book provides a fascinating glimpse of social and economic life in a pastoral society during the early part of the twentieth century. Rinzin Thargyal deserves credit for producing this rich, insightful, clearly written monograph. This book is an admirable accomplishment considering the painstaking task of describing a past way of life through the recollections of people who were spatially and temporally removed from their former homeland. Such information is now nearly unobtainable because most people with detailed knowledge of pre-1950s Tibetan society have passed away. Scholars also owe Toni Huber a debt of gratitude for recognizing the importance of this work, and for his persistence in shepherding Nomads of Eastern Tibet through the publication process—a noble and worthwhile endeavor indeed.