Brought to the United States in 1980, Tsipon Shuguba was one of the few high officials in the Dalai Lama's government to witness and survive 20 years of brutal physical and cultural genocide of the Tibetan people. This moving personal account, based on Shuguba's autobiography and many hours of documented interviews, provides information about the Chinese takeover and occupation that has been kept from the outer world, as well as rare photographs of monasteries and other destroyed cultural treasures.This book preserves a portrait of a social and religious order that is now all but extinct. At the height of Shuguba's career -- as finance minister to the 14th Dalai Lama -- catastrophe struck with terrible swiftness. Many years later, Shuguba recorded his experiences from his early childhood until his escape and final days in the United States, where he died in 1991. Simply and without bitterness, he tells of the horrors he witnessed -- the Chinese invasion, executions and massacres, the deaths of his wife and daughter, the destruction of monasteries, and his own trial and 19-year imprisonment. The Dalai Lama told Shuguba to write about what he had experienced in Tibet. The story be told, he said.