Lhasa by Robert Barnett - 9780231136815

LhasaStreets with Memories\nAuthor(s): Robert Barnett\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Columbia University Press, United States\nImprint: Columbia University Press\nISBN-13: 9780231136815, 978-0231136815\nSynopsis\nThere are many Lhasas. One is a grid of uniform boulevards lined with plush hotels, all-night bars, and blue-glass-fronted offices. Another is a warren of alleyways that surround a seventh-century temple built to pin down a supine demoness. A web of Stalinist, rectangular blocks houses the new nomenklatura. Crumbling mansions, once home to noble ministers, famous lovers, nationalist spies, and covert revolutionaries, now serve as shopping malls and faux-antique hotels. Each embodiment of the city partakes of the others' memories, whispered across time and along the city streets. In this imaginative new work, Robert Barnett offers a powerful and lyrical exploration of a city long idealized, disregarded, or misunderstood by outsiders. Looking to its streets and stone, Robert .