184 review articles Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 45 (2016) 184-190 Imre Galambos Translating Chinese tradition and teaching Tangut culture: Manuscripts and printed books from Khara-Khoto (Studies in Manuscript Cultures 6). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 2015. ISBN 978-3-11-044406-3. The Tangut Empire (a.k.a. Western Xià, 1038–1227 CE) was one of the major powers of northeastern Asia. But today it is largely forgotten, and Tangutology remains an obscure and isolated field within Asian studies despite tremendous advances over the last century. Imre Galambos’ book is a much-needed bridge between the worlds of Tang- utology and Sinology. Galambos is uniquely qualified to write it; he is equally at home in both fields and has a command of the various languages needed to work in them. The title of his book might discourage readers who are not specifically inter- ested in Tangut or Chinese manuscripts. That would be a shame because the first half of Translating Chinese Tradition and Teaching Tangut Culture is acces- sible to a far broader audience. The first chapter recounts the story of the discovery of Khara-khoto, the city whose hidden texts became the core of Tangutology. Although the outline of this tale should be familiar to Tangutologists, Galambos draws upon a variety of sources to include details that may make it fresh to specialists and interest- ing even to nonacademics. Most notable is the section “Discovery before the ‘first’ discovery” revealing that Pyotr K. Kozlov was not the first to discover Khara-khoto and to write a report about it. Those honors in fact belong to a Buryat named Tsokto Badmazhapov. Galambos delicately handles the ques- tion of why Badmazhapov did not receive the recognition he deserved by de- scribing a terrible confluence of factors: (1) the fear that non-Russians might beat the Russians to Khara-khoto if Badmazhapov’s discovery had been an- nounced, (2) “Kozlov’s personal yearning for fame,” and (3) an inability to view a non-Russian without a university degree as an equal. Galambos does not condemn anyone; he leaves readers to draw their own conclusions about this heartbreaking theft of credit. The second chapter goes back further in time to the identification of the Tangut language on the Liángzhōu 涼州 bilingual stele by Zhāng Shù 張澍 cir- ca 1804. Sinologists intimidated by Tangut may empathize with Zhāng and other Qīng dynasty Chinese pioneers such as Liú Shīlù 劉師陸 who indepen- dently identified the Tangut script on Tangut coins around 1805. The narrative eventually picks up where the previous chapter left off with an account of the development of Tangut studies following the discovery of Khara-khoto. The hero of Tangutology during the first half of the 20 th century © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/19606028-00452p05 Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 45 (2016) 184-190 ISSN 0153-3320 (print version) ISSN 1960-6028 (online version) CLAO 2 East Asian Languages and Linguistics