The Museum on the Roof of the World

“A fascinating study of how Tibet’s art and imagery was pressed into the service of two imperial powers, Britain and Communist China, to provide the rationalizations for their respective ‘missions civilisatrice’ into Tibet—the Younghusband expedition of 1904, and China’s ‘Peaceful Liberation’ of 1950 and ongoing occupation. Clare E. Harris’s instructive art history does not lack in entertaining anecdotes and arcana, of which ‘the Skull of Confucius’ alone is worth the price of the book.”

“The Museum on the Roof of the World overturns old stereotypes, makes new discoveries, and is filled with insights about the many sad ironies in the historical experience of Tibet between the late eighteenth century and the present. Clare E. Harris knows Tibet, its history and culture, contemporary life of Tibetans in exile, and Tibetans still in the Tibet Autonomous Region. She strikes a wonderful balance between generalized observations and detailed explication, successfully documenting the aims of Tibetan museums and revealing the dubious claims of ownership of Tibetan art. Well illustrated and accessible, this book will appeal to audiences in critical museology, Tibetology, history of photography, anthropology, and postcolonial studies.”

“In The Museum on the Roof of the World, Clare E. Harris provides a coherent, wonderfully readable, gripping account of the modern encounter with Tibet, in which she brings together a wealth of detail couched in a rhetorical framework of postcolonialist anthropology and museology. This is an important, original book with a timely focus.”

“Oxford anthropologist Harris provides a highly readable discussion of the ways in which political power has shaped perceptions of Tibet and its material culture, and how contemporary Tibetans are appropriating the ‘soft power’ of art as a political tool. . . . Highly recommended.”

“Written with elegance, clarity and passionate objectivity . . . Harris takes us from skull drums and thangkas to New Buddhism and the world of contemporary Tibetan artists at home and in exile, explicating the crisis of Tibetan identity and culture. Harris gives us a highly focused contribution to the discourse on the postcolonial world that is also a pleasure to read.”