The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier / / Benno Weiner.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2020
• VerfasserIn: Weiner, Benno,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2020]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (312 p.) :; 8 b&w halftones, 4 maps

In The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier, Benno Weiner provides the first in-depth study of an ethnic minority region during the first decade of the People's Republic of China: the Amdo region in the Sino-Tibetan borderland. Employing previously inaccessible local archives as well as other rare primary sources, he demonstrates that the Communist Party's goal in 1950s Amdo was not just state- building, but also nation-building. Such an objective required the construction of narratives and policies capable of convincing Tibetans of their membership in a wider political community. However, as Weiner shows, early efforts to "gradually" and "organically" transform a vast multiethnic empire into a singular nation-state lost out to a revolutionary impatience, demanding more immediate paths to national integration and socialist transformation. This led in 1958 to communization, then large-scale rebellion and its brutal pacification. Rather than a voluntary union, Amdo was integrated through the widespread, often indiscriminate use of violence, a violence that lingers in the living memory of Amdo Tibetans and others.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- A Note on Sources, Transliteration, and Nomenclature -- Introduction: Amdo, Empire, and the United Front -- 1. Amdo at the Edge of Empire -- 2. If You Kill the County Head, How Will I Explain It to the Communist Party? -- 3. Becoming Masters of Their Own Home (under the Leadership of the Party) -- 4. Establishing a Foundation among the Masses -- 5. High Tide on the High Plateau -- 6. Tibetans Do the Housework, but Han Are the Masters -- 7. Reaching the Sky in a Single Step—The Amdo Rebellion -- 8. Empty Stomachs and Unforgivable Crimes -- Conclusion: Amdo and the End of Empire? -- Appendix A: Zeku’s Chiefdoms (ca. 1953) -- Appendix B: THL/Pinyin-Chinese-Wylie Conversion Table -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University