This book, first published in 1960 and revised in 1986, is an important analysis of the under-studied Northern frontier of the British Indian Empire. It considers British relations across the Himalayas, looking at encounters with Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal and Tibet.

Alastair Lamb graduated from the University of Cambridge. He worked in the early 1960s in the Public Record Office and India Office Library in London. Later, he taught at the University of Malaya and also worked as a Senior Fellow in the Department of History at the Australian National University for three years. Later he was a Professor of History at the University of Ghana (1968–1972). He was a Reader of History at Hatfield Polytechnic during the 1980s.