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Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa
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| List Price: | £10.99 |
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Product Description
No other land has captured man's imagination quite like Tibet. Hidden away behind the highest mountains on earth, and ruled over by a mysterious God-king, it was for centuries a land forbidden to all outsiders.
In this remarkable and ultimately tragic narrative, Peter Hopkirk recounts the forcible opening up of this medieval Buddhist kingdom by inquisitive Western travellers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the race to reach Lhasa, Tibet's sacred capital.
This epic, often harrowing tale, which ends with the Chinese invasion of 1950, draws on a colourful cast of gatecrashers from nine different countries. Among them were adventurous young officers on Great Game missions, explorers and mountaineers, mystics and missionaries. All took their lives in their hands, including three intrepid women. Some were never to return.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #21516 in Books
- Published on: 2006-03-27
- Original language: English
- Binding: Paperback
- 288 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘A marvellous book, well researched and beautifully written – a treat for armchair explorers everywhere’
(New Statesman )‘As vivid and gripping as a John Buchan novel’
(Evening Standard )
About the Author
Peter Hopkirk has travelled widely in the regions where his six books are set - Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, India and Pakistan, Iran, and Eastern Turkey. He has worked as an ITN reporter, the New York correspondent of the old Daily Express, and - for twenty years - on The Times. No stranger to misadventure, he has twice been held in secret police cells and has also been hijacked by Arab terrorists. His works have been translated into fourteen languages.
Customer Reviews
Brilliant as ever
Hopkirk has made Central Asia his area of authority and his books on the subject (especially The Great Game) are all superb. He tells the real stories behind such novels as George McDonald Fraser's Flashman series in a way that makes the real-life characters come alive. The subject is thrilling in a boys-own way, but the relevance of this region to modern events is in any case huge, which adds another layer of interest. This is a shortish book, and marginally not as epic as The Great Game, so gets 4*, but I would highly recommend it
