The Yarlung/Tubo Tibetan Empire was a major Central Asian power at its height, contesting Tang China and Arab forces for control of the Silk Road and briefly occupying the Tang capital Chang'an in 763.
The Tibetan Empire disintegrated between 842 and 877 CE following the assassination of the anti-Buddhist emperor Langdarma in 842, after which civil war and regional fragmentation ended centralized Tibetan imperial rule.
Frankopan discusses the Tibetan Empire as a key player in the contest for Central Asia and the Silk Road alongside Tang China and the Abbasid Caliphate.
Grousset covers the Tibetan Empire's military expansion and its role in inner Asian frontier politics of the seventh and eighth centuries.