John Vincent Bellezza PhD is a specialist in the archaeology and cultural history of the highest reaches of the Tibetan Plateau. Author of 12 previous books and many academic articles on these subjects, he spent altogether eight years in Tibet engaged in fieldwork between 1984 and 2023. During the course of his explorations, he became the first westerner to visit the sources of the four major rivers arising in western Tibet and is perhaps the only person to reach most of the islands in the big lakes of the Tibetan tablelands.