The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama, and the First British Expedition to Tibet - Softcover

Teltscher, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810124955 ISBN 13: 9780810124950

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Touching, humorous, and illuminating, this travelogue takes readers back in time to a remarkable, world-shaping moment. With rich language and the help of a remarkable journal, author Kate Teltscher traces two extraordinary journeys across some of the harshest and highest terrain in the world: the first British expedition to Tibet and the Panchen Lama&#8217;s state visit to mark the Emperor&#8217;s seventieth birthday. In the late eighteenth century, with their empire expanding, the British sought a commercial opening to China. European traders were banned from China, but the cunning British East India Company saw a possible advocate in the Panchen Lama, the spiritual leader of the Buddhist people of Tibet. In the hopes of gaining access to Peking, they sent a young Scot named George Bogle as their envoy.<br><br> Bogle was able to gain an audience with the Panchen Lama, and in him he found much more than a business partner; the Incarnate Lama was a friendly man who loved to discuss politics, science, art, and culture. Bogle gradually became less of a tourist and less of a colonist, growing comfortable and happy the longer he spent in Tibet even as his mission to open China failed. All the while, he kept a detailed journal&#8212;his prose by turn playful, self-deprecating, grandiose, and shrewd&#8212;and this revelatory document gives readers an exhilarating front seat to the beginnings of international relationships that exert their effects even now.<br><br> Teltscher&#8217;s portrayal of Bogle&#8217;s unique diplomatic relationship with the holy man is an admission that history is made by people&#8212;and people have emotions, flaws, and feelings that enrich and affect history.

About this title

About the Author

Kate Teltscher is the author of India Inscribed: European and British Writing in India, 1600-1800 and a frequent contributor to The Times Literary Supplement. She teaches at Roehampton University in London.

Edition details

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810124955
• ISBN 13: 9780810124950
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 316