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With its small population and low GDP, Mongolia is frequently deemed "unique" or tacked onto various area studies programs: Inner Asia, Central Asia, Northeast Asia, or Eurasia. This volume is a response to the concern that countries such as Mongolia are marginalized when academia and international diplomacy reconfigure area studies borders in the postsocialist era.

Would marginalized countries such as Mongolia benefit from a reconfiguration of area studies programs or even from another way of thinking about grouping nations? This book uses Mongolia as a case study to critique the area studies methodology and test the efficacy of another grouping methodology, the "-scapes" method proposed by Arjun Appadurai. Could the application of this approach for tracing individuals' social networks by theme (finance, ethnicity, ideology, media, and technology) be applied to nation-states or peoples? Could it then prevent Mongolia from slipping through the cracks of academia and international diplomacy? Experts from ecology, genetics, archaeology, history, anthropology, and international diplomacy contemplate these issues in their chapters on Mongolia through the ages. Their work includes over 30 maps to help situate Mongolia in its geologic, geographic, economic, and cultural matrix. By comparing maps of different time periods and intellectual orientations, readers can consider for themselves the place of Mongolia in the world community and the relative benefits of these and other grouping methodologies.

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"Mongolia, the Tangut Country and the Solitudes of Northern Tibet". ... Read more

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In this work the author sketches the fascinating scenery of Siberia at a time when it was hardly known to the outside world. No date is mentioned in the book, but the time of his travels commenced around the year 1840. His area of travel was extensive: from Kokhan on the west to the eastern end of Lake Baikal, and far south to the Chinese town of Tchin-is, including the immense Chain of the Syan mountain - on which he was the first European to lay eyes upon, as well as a large portion of the western Gobi desert. He traveled for seven years and a total of about 39,500 miles.The book is a narration of facts, taken from his journals kept often under conditions of extreme difficulty. It gives a lively description of the people, their customs, habits, religious practices and graphic description of the geography and flora and fauna. The book is divided into 29 chapters with 18 illustrations. There is an accompanying map of Siberia, Mongolia, Chinese Tartary and a park of central Asia to illustrate his routes. ... Read more

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Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Inner Mongolia," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Inner Mongolia in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Inner Mongolia when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Inner Mongolia, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. ... Read more

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Vivid, hilarious, and compelling, this eagerly awaited book takes its place among the travel classics. It is a thrilling tale of adventure, a comic masterpiece, and an evocative portrait of a medieval land marooned in the modern world. Eight and a half centuries ago, under Genghis Khan, the Mongols burst forth from Central Asia in a series of spectacular conquests that took them from the Danube to the Yellow Sea. Their empire was seen as the final triumph of the nomadic "barbarians."In this remarkable book Stanley Stewart sets off on a pilgrimage across the old empire, from Istanbul to the distant homeland of the Mongol hordes. The heart of his odyssey is a thousand-mile ride, traveling by horse, through trackless land. On a journey full of bizarre characters and unexpected encounters, he crosses the desert and mountains of Central Asia to arrive at the windswept grasslands of the steppes, the birthplace of Genghis Khan. (6 x 9, 288 pages)
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Customer Reviews (15)

Read at your own risk
I add my typing to that of other reviewers who found this book condescending, the humor sarcastic and cheap. And - unlike everyone else -I believe Stewart is guilty of over-writing (see below). I actually think a travelogue is more about the author than it is about the place to which the author has been. I don't know if Bruce Chatwin was a nice person, but I think if he had written a book about a voyage to Fargo it would be a joy to read. Same goes for Robert Byron, Eric Newby, and Ryszard Kapuscinski (though R.K. was so much more than a "travel writer"). Some Amazon reviewers have disparaged Tom Bissell, but I had a lovely time visiting with his prose in Chasing the Sea. On the other hand, Stanley Stewart may be a charming man in person, but he's kind of a pill on this ride through Mongolia on horseback.

As others have commented he demeans his gracious hosts on numerous occasions. If you are going to spend the night in a Ger in wolf-country, you're going to have to expect your hosts to keep the sheep close to the yurt- and isn't it just too bad that you mussed your boots with sheep-poop in the morning?

At one point he demurs from riding on a camel. But instead of a matter-of-fact description of ill-tempered beasts, it comes across more as name dropping. Sort of: Camels? Of course I've ridden on camels. If you'd ridden on camels the way I've ridden on camels, you'd know better than to even consider riding on a camel!

Toward the end of the book, S.S. blusters his way out of paying a fine to an apparently corrupt official - and he's so proud of himself! Contrast that with Rory Stewart (no relation?) bluffing his way out of being murdered by bad actors in Afghanistan[The places in between] by claiming to be Indonesian instead of a Brit.

I did enjoy S.S's treatment of the history, somehow he handles events quite well when he is not personally involved in them.

On the writing, this is getting so long I'll just give one example: "Pegged like an unruly sheet by a line of telegraph poles, the prairie flapped away into unfathomable distances". Isn't that just a little too clever by half? I rather have the impression that he seeks more to impress than to convey the truth with his words.

So, I do not say avoid the book. There's a lot to learn here, I did finish it after all. But be forewarned: this is Mongolia through the prism of Stanley Stewart (that's the kind of thing he might write).

An Excellent Read
I've always been intrigued by the Mongols, as they are at the edge between settled and nomadic people. And I've also always like travel writing. Stanely Stewart's book therefore made me very happy. It is beautifully written and the research is thorough. I learned about the Secret History of the Mongols in one section and in another found one of my favorite senteces in any book. I do not have my copy with me, but the sentece included truck repair, camels, and Uzbeks.

Mr. Stewarts book is too good to be called a travel memoir and to lively to be called a history book. It is one of the most entertaining and informative books I have read.

a great vicarious voyage
I picked this book up browsing in my hospital bookshop while on call on a lazy saturday. On the back cover I discovered it had been recently translated into Italian (2004)from English and decided to buy it. From the moment I opened it, I couldn't put it down, I read it on work, at home, and also while driving the car (!). I laughed by myself on more than one occasion and looked around for someone to laugh with me. Naturally, I will probably never go to Mongolia, or have the guts to take the trip the author went through, but, somehow I felt that I was there. That I met the people he describes.

One interesting point of the book is its inspiration from the trip of William of Rubruc eight centuries ago. This short miliary description of the mongol world of those times has the same off hand descriptions of the mongol people and customs we find in Mr. Stewart's book.However, no one accused William of beeing "politically not correct" or "sarcastic". Often it is not necessary to have an empathic vision of a different culture to describe it to people that share our cultural standards.

Mr. Stewart's book is instructive and definitely fun to read, but above all it "takes you along" the whole time, which is really what readers that don't have the opportunities to travel as much as they would like, really want.

Good travel story
I am amazed by Mr. Stewarts ability to write. He can convey the emotions and feeling of a place with amazing clarity and I found myself really feeling like I was there.

The trip itself is quite an epic, a thousand miles by mostly horseback through a culture completely different than anything we are used to. it also comes at a really interesting time in the countries history when they have thrown off Communism and are deep in the throws of trying to make something else work.

At its best the book is full of delightful descriptions of faraway places and unique locations, the people are described so well that you can picture them sitting next to you and their conversations relate items of real significance. Learning from the people what the fall of Communism has done to their economy makes for fascinating reading. Also learning about the history of the Monks and the world of Genghis Khan was fascinating.

At its worst, the book doesn't cut the Mongolian people very much slack. They have decided not to live in cities but rather to live in tents (gers), rather than celebrate a thousand-year-old tradition and show what good it brings and how it enriches the lives of the people who live it, mostly you get the feeling that it is inferior and the people who live it ought to switch to something better.

It also portrays Communism and the Russian government in a completely evil light, no effort is made to record areas where the life of the Mongolian has gotten better thanks to Communism, although brief mention of government bldgs, schools and acting troups is mentioned. Yet how poorly the people fared and when the system didn't work is vividly brought out into the open.

This is also about travelling over some of the most lonely isolated terrain in the world, yet little time is spent discussing the travel itself. How did they get food when they were not in a Ger, what did it feel like to spend weeks in the saddle from morning to night, How did the clothing feel, etc. Very little was spent on the actual travel itself, the book focuses primarily on the people that were met.

But these are minor points, its is a good book to learn about the culture of Mongolia and what has been happening to the common man since the fall of Communism and I found myself reading all the way through without being bored.

condescending
I couldn't put this book down, i'll give it that much.
But I didn't always like it.

While the narration was interesting and fairly well written, I felt a rather pretentious, and quite condescending air as he described the mongolians he met and the way in which they lived.

The descriptions of the landscape were beautiful, but it didn't hide the fact that I felt Stewart was narrating a 4 star resort tour of the country instead of what was supposed to be a wilderness trek.

None the less, I found it hard to put it down, maybe because the historial bits were so intruiging. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the World, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 5138 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.A compilation of current information on cultural, geographic, and political conditions in 193 countries and their cities covering six continents, based on the Department of State's Post Reports. ... Read more

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This book offers an in-depth insight into post-socialist rural shamans in Mongolia thereby contributing a rare but important contribution to the ethnography of both Inner Asia and Southern Siberia. It examines the social making of shamans, in particular those of the Shishget depression of the northernmost borders of Mongolia. By analysing practices, discourses and performances in local and national arenas, the author traces the social constitution of the shamans' inspirational power, examines the shamans' performance of power during the seance, discusses the economy of reputation of successful shamans and scrutinizes their legitimizing practices. The study will be welcomed by students of social/cultural anthropology and religious studies with a particular interest in shamanism or ritual studies. ... Read more

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Squeezed between powerful neighbours, for decades Mongolia played the role of buffer state. Its full independence in 1990 offered new opportunities for both economic growth and the restoration of Mongolian identity. But with a huge land area, poor infrastructure and a small population, the new republic is highly vulnerable and also dependent on international support.
This book provides easily accessible information for developers, planners, consultants, scholars, students and others with an interest in contemporary Mongolia. Prefaced by a general overview of the land and society, its chapters, all written by international experts, cover a wide range of topics, including foreign policy, domestic politics, local government structure, living standards and poverty, women in society, grassland management, the common herding household, and science and technology policy. A comprehensive bibliography is provided. ... Read more

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This book examines the processes of cultural modernization in Mongolia, using as its focus the folk instrument known as the -horse-head fiddle- (morin khuur). ... Read more

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Baabar's Twentieth Century Mongolia is a unique history book. It is the first history of Mongolia available in English to draw upon both academic scholarship and archival data that only became available with the collapse of the socialist regime in 1990. In doing so, it highlights the role of international politics - involving Russia/the Soviet Union, China and Japan - in the shaping of Mongolia's history. Baabar himself feels that the role of China in determining Mongolia's fate is under-appreciated in Western scholarship.The volume is composed of three 'books'. The first offers a survey of the history of Mongolia up to the 1911 revolution. The second looks at the political situation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, up until the early socialist period (the early 1920s). While drawing upon Western sources, it also incorporates some newly available materials from the period. The last book is in many ways the most interesting, for it is in this section of the work that Baabar draws most heavily upon new material. It makes extensive use of archival material that has been made newly available with the collapse of the socialist regime. In doing so, it offers a richer picture and fuller understanding of the events of the 1920s and 1930s in Mongolia - a key period in the country's history. Although the socialists were unable to establish a fully socialist society, during this period Soviet influence became dominant, and they faced the most serious threats to their power. This part of the book, which concludes with the official recognition of Mongolia's independence by China in 1946, also examines the destruction of the Buddhist church and nobility by the socialists.TABLE OF CONTENTS: Editor's PrefaceAuthor's IntroductionBOOK ONE. THE STEPPE WARRIORSIntroduction. Plano's Report to the VaticanChapter One. The Origin of the MongolsChapter Two. Greater Asian History: Preparing the Way for Chinggis KhaanChapter Three. The Rise of the Mongol Empire Chapter Four. The Legacy of Chinggis KhaanChapter Five. Chinggis Khaan's Successors Chapter Six. Religion in the Post-Chinggis EraChapter Seven. Hubilai Khaan and the Yuan DynastyChapter Eight. The Fourteenth to the Sixteenth CenturiesChapter Nine. The Manchu's Qing DynastyChapter Ten. The Rise of Tibetan BuddhismChapter Eleven. Mongol Relations with RussiaChapter Twelve. The Zuungar KhanateChapter Thirteen. The Fall of the Zuungar KhanateChapter Fourteen. The Subjugation of MongoliaBOOK TWO. INCARNATIONS AND REVOLUTIONARIESIntroduction. The Troublesome ToyChapter One. Mongolia Proclaims its IndependenceChapter Two. Winds of Change in Nineteenth Century European PoliticsChapter Three. The Assault on ChinaChapter Four. Russia's Plans for MongoliaChapter Five. The Fight for North ChinaChapter Six. China Undertakes ReformChapter Seven. Unrest among the MongolsChapter Eight. The 1911 Republic of ChinaChapter Nine. The Mongols Seize the DayChapter Ten. Russia and China RespondChapter Eleven. The Russo-Mongol Treaty of 1912Chapter Twelve. The Sino-Russian Declaration on MongoliaChapter Thirteen. The Mongols Respond to the DeclarationChapter Fourteen. The Tripartite ConferenceChapter Fifteen. Life in 1913 MongoliaChapter Sixteen. The Chinese High Commissioner in HreeChapter Seventeen. World War IChapter Eighteen. Chaos in Russia8Chapter Nineteen. China and Japan Vie for SpoilsChapter Twenty. The Chinese Invade MongoliaChapter Twenty-One. The ResistanceChapter Twenty-Two. The Mongolian People's PartyChapter Twenty-Three. The Mad Baron's Reign in MongoliaChapter Twenty-Four. The Mongols Seek RecognitionChapter Twenty-Five. The 1921 Soviet-Mongol Friendship TalksChapter Twenty-Six. The First PurgeChapter Twenty-Seven. The Soviets Become Entrenched in MongoliaBOOK THREE. A PUPPET REPUBLICIntroduction. The Ghost of Prime Ministers PastChapter One. Chinese Politics in the 1920sChapter Two. The Sino-Soviet Joust for Outer MongoliaChapter Three. Mongolia Becomes a Soviet RepublicChapter Four. Mongolia's Transition to CommunismChapter Five. The Soviet Constitution for MongoliaChapter Six. Communism Infiltrates ChinaChapter Seven. Mongolia Continues to Seek IndependenceChapter Eight. Power Struggles in ChinaChapter Nine. Soviet Policy Change in MongoliaChapter Ten. Stalin's Brutal Reign in RussiaChapter Eleven. Communist Hysteria Sweeps MongoliaChapter Twelve. Soviet Reforms in MongoliaChapter Thirteen. Class StruggleChapter Fourteen. Mongols Protest the OppressionChapter Fifteen. The "New Reform Policy" in MongoliaChapter Sixteen. Stalin's Vengeance against the BuriadsChapter Seventeen. Japanese Politics in the 1930sChapter Eighteen. Continued Japanese Interest in MongoliaChapter Nineteen. Genden Falls into DisfavorChapter Twenty. The Rise of ChoibalsanChapter Twenty-One. The Great PurgeChapter Twenty-Two. Reflections on the Great TerrorChapter Twenty-Three. Choibalsan's Continued LeadershipChapter Twenty-Four. The 1939 Halhyn Gol IncidentChapter Twenty-Five. World War IIChapter Twenty-Six. The Post-War Map of AsiaChapter Twenty-Seven. The Fate of Mongolia's IndependenceNotesBibliographyIndex ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

True facts and full of information about Mongolia and its people and lifestyle
This is one of the book that had been recommended by the teachers of school of foreign service,National university of Mongolia. Full of true facts and information that people who are in the field of mongolian studies shall have this book.

Best yet!
IF you are interested in Mongolia's early history (Genghis, Ogodei, Kublai, the Mongols, etc.) this isn't the one you would want. However, this book has lots of information from beginning of 1900s to 1945.

Get your best knowledge on Mongol history!!!!
Baabar's Twentieth Century Mongolia is one of the best books ever written on Mongol history. This is the sole available work that not only deals with Chingis-Khanite period till modern day Mongolia, but is also written by a Mongol person. The book would be a great help for one who is doing a research on Mongol history and people. Not only a great writer, Mr. Baabar is a leading democratic revolutionist and a respectable politician in our country.

Get your best knowledge on Mongol history!!!!
Baabar's Twentieth Century Mongolia is one of the best books ever written on Mongol history. This is the sole available work that not only deals with Chingis-Khanite period till modern day Mongolia, but is also written by a Mongol person. The book would be a great help for one who is doing a research on Mongol history and people. Not only a great writer, Mr. Baabar is a leading democratic revolutionist and a respectable politician in our country.

True history
Last 80 years we, Mongolians read ideolised (Mongolian history from Marxist point of view). But Baabar's book opened our eyes. This is true history of Mongolia last century. ... Read more

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This is an account of the thorough study of the area that the author surveyed in 1910 and 1911. The area that he describes is located south of Siberia, North of the Tien Shan Mountains West of the Gobi desert and East of Russian Turkistan. Effectively it is the habitat of the Western Mongolian tribes and the plains of Dzungaria. These were the days when the colonizing race between Russia and England was on, and each was looking to extend the sphere of their influence where ever they could. Unlike other adventures, Caruthers does not rush into his travel with the spirit of a dare-devil, rather the travels with a large caravan which include a trained surveyor and equipped with the means of investigating and collecting the flora and fauna, the geology and zoology.The book is in 2 volumes contains 20 chapters and 5 appendices. There are 6 photograph and 5 maps of the areas that he traveled in. Dogulas Caruthers was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society for this exploration. ... Read more

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Published in China in 2003, this book presents maps and discussion of changing settlement patterns through seven thousand years across an intensively surveyed area of 765 square kilometers in northeastern China that lies near the traditional frontier between the large settled agricultural zone of the Yellow River basin and the varied, sometimes mobile, pastoral, and agricultural adaptations of Eurasia. Attention is focused on field and analytical methods for reconstructing ancient populations and their distributions. ... Read more

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The classic history of the Mongols, by a highly respected writer and translator Jeremiah Curtin.

The Mongols were the superpower of their day, erupting out of Central Asia in 1206 to conquer an empire stretching from Poland to Korea. Their arrival in the Middle East upset the very tenuous balance between Christendom and Islam, sparking a long-simmering rivalry that has, as we all know, lasted to this day.An absorbing, detailed narrative on the clans, feuds, battles, and conquests of the Mongol era, covering every aspect of Mongol intrigue, logistics, and tactics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Way outdated
One of the sad truisms about historical writings is that they are constantly in a state of flux.New archeological evidence and increased sources make the most recent editions and writings of a history ESSENTIAL to its most accurate understanding.

That being said, this has a foreword by Teddy Roosevelt... I enjoyed this as I was reading it, but as I further researched the Mongols (as I'm obsessed with Ghengis), I came to find that this text was extremely inaccurate.A glaring example is when this text attributes to Ghengis the act of boiling alive over 70 men of his enemy.More recent writings attribute this vile act to Ghengis' ENEMY directed at Ghengis.Kinda important... Please get a more recent text.

Outstanding
This book comes from a past age when Scholars where Scholars!

The books reads like a dream, full of all the facts, and obscure details and character analysis.

Jeremiah spent years researching the book. He could speak all the Mongolian/Chinese dialects, and also lived with Mongoloian Tribes in Mongolia.

Fantastic accounts of the Persian Empire, Sung Empire and the Assassins Commonwealth.

The best commentary on the mongols i have come across by far.

A scholarly and timely account of some old terrorists
And the terrorists are not the Mongols!This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to know the mindset of Al Queda.There is a chapter dealing with the origins of the infamous Assassin sect of Islam and their eventual destruction at the hands of the Mongols.Its all here-suicide killers, twisted sense of honor, et al.Curtin takes you all the way back to the death of Mohammed and chronicles the rift in Islam that continues to this day.Of course, this is only a chapter in the story of Mongol conquest, but its worth the price of admission, by itself.The foreward, by President Theodore Roosevelt, (this book was written in 1908!!) should tell you that this is a work of dedicated sholarship.

An excellent read
I cannot be sure of the historical authenticity of this book, but that is due to my own ignorance, rather than any question of its validity.It is an excellent read and it shows some insight into Temujin's personality (he is strikingly similar to Yoshikawa's Musashi, e.g. the mountain climbing, desire to be the best, etc). This book also goes beyond the history centered around him and into the Golden Horde and post-Temujin Mongols.Overall, it gives some much needed attention to an ethnic group that is oftne ridiculed in today's world.People often forget that the Mongols held more land under their sway than any other civilization at any time in the world. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from World Education Encyclopedia, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 937 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.This country-by-country survey of educational systems provides detailed essays on the histories, legal foundations, and primary and secondary educational systems of 233 countries. This edition provides up-to-date coverage of reorganized educational systems and technological advances. ... Read more