Trespassers on the Roof of the World is a narrative history of outside travel into Tibet during the period of about 1850 to 1950. It is not an exhaustive survey but retells some of the most well known and interesting stories for a popular audience. Hopkirk is a skilled journalistic story teller and he keeps the reader enthralled with one amazing story after the next, I hardly wanted to put the book down. As is the case in books like this, a lot of ground is covered at the expense of wanting to know more and not getting a good feel for the people involved. In the end the book is a popularizer of some really good travel literature about Tibet and it should send the reader off to explore in more detail some of these great and now obscure works.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd ( )