Mapping Shangrila

"Notable for the consistent high quality of all of the included articles, readers will be rewarded with interesting and accessible studies regardless of where they open the book. . . . [G]reater than its parts. . . . [I]t is the unveiling of a new way of thinking about landscapes as dynamic sites of exchange. . . . [R]eaders become witness to a landscape emerging from its pages that is as multidimensional and dramatic as one might imagine the ‘real’ Shangrila to be."

-- E. Elena Songster * Environmental History *

"[T]he editors of this book have done a fine job assembling recent studies into a comprehensive volume of ethnography and place-based geographical analysis. . . [F]inely written and informative, in the end this book is greater than the sum of its parts. . . . It simultaneously is empirical and humanistic—and for that reason illuminating. . . . [I]t successfully and pleasingly weds the fluttering of geographical imagination to real issues on the ground."

-- David Zurick * Geographical Review *

"With the publication of [In the Land of the Eastern Queendom and Mapping Shangrila], we see that “Sino-Tibetan Borderland Studies” has in a sense come of age as a distinct area of inquiry. . . . The Sino-Tibetan frontiers are thus of considerable interest in their own right, while bringing an important range of broad issues facing China into close focus as well."

-- Matthew T. Kapstein * Pacific Affairs *

"[A] welcome move away from a predominant view of Shangrila as a product of ‘Western’ desires and fantasies. . . [A]n important addition to the growing body of studies on China’s borderlands (material and conceptual), which are central to social, political, and economic transformations in contemporary China."

-- Trine Brox * Journal of Asian Studies *

"Mapping Shangrila is an important—if somber—addition to the scholarly literature on Tibet, Tibetan peoples, borderland and frontier studies, geography, political ecology, and China area studies. Yeh and Coggins have once again proven themselves adept at producing scholarship that is solidly grounded in geographic theory and perspectives, while appealing to and accessible to much broader audiences. . . . Yeh and Coggins and their contributors should be commended for this important contribution, which should serve as a foundational reading for anyone seeking to understand how meanings and mappings of ethnicity, nature, and culture are shaped and reshaped in this fascinating and important region."

-- Darrinn Magee * AAG Review of Boo