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Baotou is the largest industrial city in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Central Baotou has mountains and hills, with plateaus and grassland to the north and plains to the south. The Yellow River runs through the city from west to east. Baotou is rich in mineral resources, especially in metallic minerals; it is called the rare earth capital in China. ... Read more

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This important study explores the multifaceted experience of Mongols in China, past and present, as their identity balances precariously between historical memory and their contemporary position as an ethnic minority. Uradyn E. Bulag assesses the intricate relationship between socialism and nationalism that generates both resistance and complicity and defines the moral dilemmas that have confronted Mongols and Chinese in negotiating nationality issues. Written by an indigenous anthropologist trained in the West, the work is informed by the author's sophisticated understanding of theory and personal sense of society and history. Breaking new ground in the study of Chinese and Mongol history and ethnicity, the author offers a fresh interpretation of China viewed from the perspective of its peripheries. ... Read more

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The Ordos Plateau of China is an account of regional human-environmental history of the Ordos Plateau, a dryland region inhabited by Chinese farmers and Mongolian shepherds. It surveys environmental change during 1949-92, examines such societal factors as government policy, resource use institutions, economics, population, and cultural attitudes and beliefs, and investigates how these factors have contributed to environmental change in the Ordos Plateau. The Ordos Plateau of China is among a few books written on China's regional human-environmental issues by a Chinese- and US-trained geographer in recent years. UNU Series on Critical Environmental Regions ... Read more

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Poisoned Arrows: The Stalin-Choibalsan Mongolian Massacres, 1921-1941 reveals to an English speaking readership for the first time the truth about the massacres conducted between 1921-1941 by the Stalinist KGB and its puppet Mongolian counterpart in converting the historic home of Chinggis Khan into the world's second communist state and keeping it isolated from the world under Soviet domination for seventy years. Following "orders from Moscow," the Mongolian leader Choibalsan and the Soviet-Mongolian KGB ruthlessly executed all of Mongolia's top governmental and party leaders, the nation's most prominent religious and intellectual figures and tens of thousands of innocent citizens. This book is based on secret archival documents and other rare materials to which the public was granted access following Mongolia's 1989-1990 democratic revolution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Disappointed
I received this book as a gift from a friend to whom his teacher suggested as very good source on Mongolian early republican years (1924-1945). Though I read only halfway through and I got pretty disappointed. As for me, someone who never even published single article in my life it is not sincere to say Mr. Sandag's book is not very good one, but as a history lover and a person who read quite many books and articles on this issue I had to say this for people who are interested in and want to study Mongolian history in the future.

In general, I'd definitely suggest Mr. Baabar's "History of Twentieth century of Mongolia" for people who want to get the general but still informative idea of what happened when and where in that period.

Goods things about this book is it has some rare good photos of Mongolian revolutionaries and political leaders of that time. Also lots of dates (which is not really important for some cases).

Negative side that let me down is that book is written so emotional rather than academic. Since author's father was purged and killed in the great purge of nineteen thirties reader can smell Mr. Sandag's hatred toward Kh.Choibalsan, prime minister of Mongolia then, and J.Stalin even before he/she get to the introduction. Because of that hatred he was really blinded to see and tell some truth.

Translation of some Mongolian words and putting down some people's and places' names into Latin alphabet was incorrect, too.

Moreover attacking other historians in his book as "... Really, didn't you know ..." seemed little rude.

You can also tell author doesn't know very much about other people's history than Mongolian history when he compared today's Mongolia to Taiwan and South Korea. Mr. Sandag said if Mongolia is not well developed and the other two is doing well today is because the two were part of Japanese empire before 1945. Fact is Japan didn't bring any good to its occupied countries other than poverty, famine and pain, and for the two (Taiwan and South Korea) they're doing so excellent today because of the U.S.And Japan was exploiting Pan-Mongolism and playing with inner-Mongolians to only expand its territory over Mongolia.

In overall, I don't think Mr. Sandag really sees what Mongolia gained from Russia. I personally convinced that without Russians' interest in Mongolia we wouldn't see any Mongolian independent country today, but only as part of China!!! And of course, sadly with great sacrifice.

So if one feels like wanting to know little more about people, events and dates after reading Mr. Baabar's book I guess he/she can read this book. But it's not worth buying for the price ($90) that Amazon offers.

A Mongolian Gulag Revealed
Mongolia has fascinated me since I first read about Roy Chapman Andrews' 1920s paleontological expeditions there, which found some of the world's most famous fossils. Andrews drew a marvelous picture of a vast, vibrantcountry which once had ruled most of Asia and part of Europe, but heemphasized its archaic, exotic elements. Sandag and Kendall's POISONEDARROWS: THE STALIN-CHOIBALSAN MONGOLIAN MASSACRES, 1921-1941 does a lucidscholarly job of telling a little-known other side of the Mongolian story. Although emerging from feudalism in the early 1900s, Mongolia already hadproduced a class of leaders and intellectuals who aspired to make it amodern democratic society.According to Shagdariin Sandag (a prominentMongolian historian), Soviet communism, while professing to supportMongolian modernization, actually prevented it through decades ofrepression which virtually exterminated its leadership, exploited itsresources and left it poorer than it had been in 1920.Sandag's own fatherwas among those "liquidated"-- he disappeared in 1939 and hisfate (execution as a "Japanese spy") remained unknown until 1993. Sandag brings strong feelings as well as a wealth of detaileddocumentation to the story, which resembles Solzhintsyn's GULAGARCHIPELAGO. He and co-author Harry Kendall tell the story well, althoughit is a horrific one.The relentlessness of Stalinist brutalities andduplicities (perpetrated not only by Soviets but by Mongolian Stalinists)seems nightmarish and insane.But the story should be known by anyone witha serious interest in central Asia, which, lying between Russia and China,is an increasingly important part of the world.

David Rains Wallace is awriter specializing in natural history and conservation.His latest bookis THE BONE HUNTERS REVENGE:DINOSAURS, GREED, AND THE GREATEST SCIENTIFICFEUD OF THE GILDED AGE. ... Read more

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