Abstract: [Note: This is a review essay of the following books: Shadow States: India, China, and the Himalayas by Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, India Turns East: International Engagement and the US-China Rivalry by Frédéric Grare, Muslim, Trader, Nomad, Spy: China’s Cold War and the People of the Tibetan Borderlands by Sulmaan Wasif Khan, and China’s India War: Collision Course on the Roof of the World by Bertil Lintner.]
These four books on Sino-Indian relations provide new evidence and novel arguments about the origins of the border dispute, the Sino-Indian border war of 1962 and the evolution of the Sino-Indian rivalry. Three of the four books have made use of newly declassified archival material and have thereby challenged existing knowledge about various features of this contentious relationship. The books, nevertheless, are of varying quality. One or two of them represent the acme of dispassionate scholarship while at least one asserts some very partisan claims. That said, they all represent a new wave of scholarship on Sino-Indian relations and should be of value to those interested in this fraught relationship.
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