About the book (from jacket flap):
Noel Barber’s story takes him not only to Tezpur to welcome the God-king, but up through the high passes of Tibet to talk, in person, with the leaders of the Tibetan guerrillas and so piece together the complete story of what was happening, and how it led to the great revolt at Lhasa, the escape of the Dalai Lama.
He writes of Tibet and its people as vividly as he wrote of Antarctica in The White Desert, and this new book, in turn exciting, entertaining, angry, but intelligent always, establishes him as one of the world’s boldest and mos brilliant reporters.
About Dalai Lama’s flight (from Wikipedia):
At the outset of the 1959 Tibetan uprising, fearing for his life, the Dalai Lama and his retinue fled Tibet with the help of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, crossing into India on 30 March 1959, reaching Tezpur in Assam on 18 April. Some time later he set up the Government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamshala, India, which is often referred to as “Little Lhasa”. After the founding of the government in exile he re-established the approximately 80,000 Tibetan refugees who followed him into exile in agricultural settlements.
