Book excerpt: The explosive growth of China's economy since the late 1970s has impacted the whole world including the minority peoples in the west of China - people like the Qiang, Tibetans and Yi. Based on fieldwork in the high valleys of the eastern margins of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, David Burnett has produced a unique study of a people known as the Rgyalrong (officially classed as Tibetans). The Rgyalrong have been impacted by secular education, tourism, and migration to the cities that have resulted from economic reform. Amidst these changes, they endeavour to retain something of their traditional customs, songs, festivals, arts and crafts. They are a people who realize that if they lose their unique culture they will lose their very identity. The issues raised in this book relate not only to the Rgyalrong but to minority peoples everywhere as they experience the forces of globalization.