Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. 1910-50: 1. False starts: the first rush towards the eastern Himalayas; 2. The return of the fair-weather state: World War Two and the Himalayas; Part II. 1950-9: 3. Exploration, expansion, consolidation? State power and its limitations; 4. The art of persuasion: development in a border space; Part III. 1959-62: 5. A void screaming to be filled: militarisation and state-society relations; 6. Salt tastes the same in India and China: a different kind of security dilemma; 7. Open war: state-making's dress rehearsal; Conclusion.

"Since the mid-twentieth century, China and India have entertained a difficult relationship, erupting into open war in 1962. Shadow States is the first book to unpack Sino-Indian tensions from the angle of competitive state-building making - through a study of their simultaneous attempts to win the approval and support of the Himalayan people. When China and India tried to expand into the Himalayas in the twentieth century, their lack of strong ties to the region and the absence of an easily enforceable border made their proximity threatening: observing China's and India's state-making efforts, local inhabitants were in a position to compare and potentially choose between them. Using rich and original archival research, Bérénice Guyot-Réchard shows how India and China became each other's 'shadow states'. Understanding these recent, competing processes of state formation in the Himalayas is fundamental to understanding the roots of tensions in Sino-Indian relations"-- Provided by publisher.