This book is the latest in a series of studies of Western perceptions and mythmaking in relation to Tibet.Footnote 10 In his introduction, Neuhaus explains that virtually no studies have sought to examine “British and German engagement overseas in a comparative and transnational context” (p. 11). His own study, which is based on a PhD thesis, is an attempt to fill that gap. The overall argument is that “cross-cultural encounters held up a mirror to European cultures” (p. 1). In analyzing them, we learn as much or more about Europe as we do about Tibet, and therein lies their main value.
Neuhaus focuses on the period from the mid-1850s until 1959: he argues that the mid-nineteenth century serves as a “neuralgic turning point” (p. 5) when all the major types of travel—by missionaries, scientists, and individual explorers—had begun to emerge. The Dalai Lama's flight from Tibet in 1959 forms an obvious endpoint. The main sources include a wide range of published books and articles, supported in some cases by archival records and photographs.
Neuhaus presents his material in three sections. Part one discusses Western representations of Tibet between 1853 and 1904, a period marked by a “relatively self-assured sense of Western superiority” (p. 81). The key actors in this period include Christian missionaries who were opposed to the evils of “lamaism,” in contrast with the Theosophists who saw Tibet as a source of ancient wisdom. Meanwhile, the Survey of India dispatched indigenous “pundits” on covert map-making expeditions to Tibet, while such European adventurers as Henry Savage Landor (1865–1924) described dramatic adventures in which they asserted their own heroism against hostile “natives” and the perils of the natural environment.
Part two opens with the aftermath of the 1903/1904 British military expedition to Lhasa and closes with Indian independence in 1947. In a chapter entitled “Developing Diplomacy,” Neuhaus discusses British political engagement with Tibet. He follows this up with a discussion of British and German attitudes towards race and social order, as well as a review of changing attitudes towards Tibetan spirituality, and an analysis of the ethos of mountain climbing. Neuhaus argues that this period was characterized by a “rethinking of Western ideas” and “doubts about the superiority of Western ‘civilization’” (p. 85).
Part three briefly surveys the twelve years between Indian independence and the 1959 Tibetan uprising, combining an analysis of British diplomacy with a review of adventure stories for boys that are set in Tibet, and a further discourse on mountaineering. The book closes with a brief conclusion and epilogue, reviewing more recent events.
This summary of the book's contents—brief as it is—points to the scale of the challenge that Neuhaus has set himself. From the outset, he makes clear that, contrary to the book's title, there is no single “Western imagination” of Tibet. Similarly, travelers' perceptions of Tibet “almost always transcended national boundaries” (p. 1). As Neuhaus rightly points out, most writers on Tibet saw themselves as belonging to transnational communities, whether of missionaries, scholars, aficionados of the occult, or mountain climbers. His book addresses all these themes.
One of the pleasures of the book is the rich diversity of characters that Neuhaus presents. However, this same richness presents him with a problem of selection. The thesis on which the book is based carries the title “British and German representations of Tibet and the Himalayas,” and most of the examples come from these two countries. This national focus arguably makes the book more manageable; it also means that it is less complete. As Neuhaus points out, representations of Tibet from other countries were frequently translated into English or German and “formed a key part of the wider ‘canon’ of works dealing with Inner Asia” (p. 11). Indeed so. It is therefore disappointing to find no mention of, for instance, the Russian painter and author Nikolai Roerich (1874–1947) in the discussion of “spirituality,” or of the Italian scholar Giuseppe Tucci (1894–1984) and his French colleague Jacques Bacot (1877–1925) in the analysis of religion and scholarship. Even the leading British official and author Sir Charles Bell (1870–1945) and the German traveler and scientist Wilhelm Filchner (1877–1957) make no more than cursory appearances.
Neuhaus concludes the book with a series of reflections on the contemporary discourse on Tibet, arguing that it is still “self-reflective” and that the majority of contemporary representations use Tibet “as a screen against which they can explore wider concerns, from apocalypse to man's battle with nature” (pp. 199–200). He is no doubt correct to sound a warning against artistic and academic narcissism. However, as a final verdict, like many of the verdicts in the book, it is just a little too sweeping.
Neuhaus writes briskly, often entertainingly, and covers an immense amount of ground. At the same time, one is left with the sense that he might have achieved more if he had attempted less, focusing on one of his themes in detail rather than attempting to cover the entire range of Western representations of Tibet. This is a first book. Perhaps he will achieve more.
