Tibet is famed for its majestic beauty, and also for its ongoing struggle for cultural survival. This collection of photographs from the British Library, taken by two British diplomats in the early twentieth century, shows traditional Tibetan culture before Chinese rule was imposed. In Lhasa, a noble family take a picnic in a park, the women’s elaborate head-dresses adorned with pearls. Travelling folk-opera singers pose in costumes and masks.

First settled in the sixth or seventh century BC, Samarkand has known periods of prosperity and decline – its craftsmen traded and settled as far afield as the Chinese borders, and its great military leader Tamerlane fought wars against Persia, Syria and India. Samarkand is best known as a centre of Islamic learning and architecture. The photographs collected here were taken during the key period from 1871 to the 1890s, following the Tsarist conquest of 1868, but before the Soviet rule which resulted in the destruction of many Islamic landmarks.

The tumultuous past of the world’s most secretive nation is revealed in this unique photographic collection.
North Korea has been described as “the land that never changes”. But its early years witnessed unimaginable turbulence, both in the devastation of the Korean War and in the postwar ferment in which military interventions by the Chinese and the Americans both played a part.