An earnest and painstaking account of the very tangled China-India boundary conflict. With all the effort, there are still gaps in our understanding: for example, how did something that was treated for centuries as an undefined frontier zone become a disputed boundary after independence? This is an India-friendly account, but the author does not hesitate to comment on the relative inflexibility in India's stand, as contrasted with the approach of other countries like Burma, Nepal, and Pakistan, that have reached border agreements with China. ( )