A study of the production of history and memory among the exile Tibetan community, focusing on the largely suppressed narratives of the armed resistance against the Chinese from the 1950s to the early 1970s

In the 1950s, thousands of ordinary Tibetans rose up to defend their country and religion against Chinese troops. Their citizen army fought through 1974 with covert support from the Tibetan exile government and the governments of India, Nepal, and the United States. Decades later, the story of this resistance is only beginning to be told and has not yet entered the annals of Tibetan national history. In Arrested Histories, the anthropologist and historian Carole McGranahan shows how and why histories of this resistance army are “arrested” and explains the ensuing repercussions for the Tibetan refugee community.

Drawing on rich ethnographic and historical research, McGranahan tells the story of the Tibetan resistance and the social processes through which this history is made and unmade, and lived and forgotten in the present. Fulfillment of veterans’ desire for recognition hinges on the Dalai Lama and “historical arrest,” a practice in which the telling of certain pasts is suspended until an undetermined time in the future. In this analysis, struggles over history emerge as a profound pain of belonging. Tibetan cultural politics, regional identities, and religious commitments cannot be disentangled from imperial histories, contemporary geopolitics, and romanticized representations of Tibet. Moving deftly from armed struggle to nonviolent hunger strikes, and from diplomatic offices to refugee camps, Arrested Histories provides powerful insights into the stakes of political engagement and the cultural contradictions of everyday life.

"“Arrested Histories breathes an air of dedicated scholarship, thoroughness, of meticulous research. There are maps, including one on the ‘Tibetan areas’ of China, almost two scores of illustrations, an excellent bibliography, a note on transliteration and photographs. Above all, it illumines a subject that has sadly been long neglected, if now half forgotten.”" - The Tribune (Chandigarh)

"“Historians, ethnographers, and students of culture in Tibet particularly, and more generally in South Asia and China, as well as those in Cold War studies, Memory studies, and further afield should pay attention to this important work: It marks a milestone for how politically sensitive histories that are ‘arrested’ through polemics can be released, and told in a nuanced and responsible way. Arrested Histories allows for new, unheard voices to enter the archive, while also creating new futures and possibilities for these voices, in its acknowledgement of a truly representative, engaged and relevant history for Tibet.”" - Journal of Asian Studies

"“McGranahan has patiently interviewed elderly survivors of the Tibetan guerilla resistance to Chinese rule, which lasted from 1956 to 1974. . . . As an anthropologist, McGranahan attends chiefly to the politics of memory and forgetting, the formation of identity, and the construction of gender, leaving the military and political histories of the forgotten war, as she says, a work in progress.”" - Foreign Affairs

"“The book is an invaluable guide to the complexities of Tibetan resistance to the Chinese and is especially strong in its descriptions of the interactions between Tibetan politics and Tibetan religion (including violence in the defense of nonviolence), the tension between a unified Tibet and strong regional traditions, the difficulties and sadness of refugee relocation, and the long CIA involvement with the Tibetan resistance. . . . Recommended.”" - Choice

"“The struggle of Tibetans—known to Americans primarily through bumper sticker discourse—is presented here in fine-grained detail. Its complexities, contradictions, and ironies are fully explored. . . . This book would be valuable if it did nothing other than complicate our understanding of Tibet. However, its fruitful use of the ample literature on social memory combined with high-quality ethnography make it a valuable addition to the libraries of those with broader interests in the politics of memory.”" - PoLAR