Subject: This Month in Mongolian Studies - April 2015

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April 2015
In this Issue:

ACMS Announcements

Upcoming ACMS Sponsored Programs and Events

Calls for Papers, Conferences and Workshops

Research Fellowships, Scholarships and Grants

Resources

Other News and Events

Recent Publications


"This Month in Mongolian Studies" is a monthly listing of selected academic activities and resources related to Mongolia. This list is based on information the ACMS has received and is presented as a service to its members. If you would like to submit information to be included in next month's issue please contact the ACMS at info@mongoliacenter.org and/or the editor, Marissa Smith, at msmith@mongoliacenter.org.

This publication is supported in part by memberships.  Please consider becoming a member of the ACMS, or renewing your membership by visiting our website at
mongoliacenter.org/join.  Thank you!
ACMS Announcements
Mongolia Cultural Heritage Research Fellowship Application Deadline April 30th. The ACMS has a new fellowship program offering for 2015-2016, made possible by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation (http://www.hluce.org/home.aspx): the Mongolia Cultural Heritage Research Fellowship Program. This fellowship program will support up to four fellows (two long-term fellowships of up to 9 months, and two short-term fellowships of 1-3 months) to carry out advanced graduate or post-doctoral research on topics related to the preservation of Mongolia's Cultural Heritage. For more information, including application information, please visit the Cultural Heritage page at the ACMS website. Deadline for applications is April 30, 2015.
Upcoming ACMS Sponsored Programs and Events
Speaker Series Events

IN PHILADELPHIA:

April 23rd
, 4:30pm in 111 Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Johan Elverskog, "Portraits of Muhammad from Chinggis Khan to Charlie Hebdo"

Dr. Elverskog is Altshuler University Distinguished Teaching Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University. He is the author or editor of nine books including the award-winning Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road.

Calls for Papers, Conferences, Workshops
Call for Proposals

Call for abstracts: Special Session 10756 “Ecosystem science in Mongolia: Past research and future prospects under a regime of increasing environmental impacts” to be held at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), August 9-14, 2015, Baltimore, Maryland. Summary: This special session will facilitate a discussion about the ecology of Mongolia from a variety of perspectives spanning disciplines such as landscape and range ecology, biogeography, biological assessment and monitoring, large river and fish ecology, and biodiversity studies, to name a few. Please see here for link to call for abstracts, and check the Ecological Science at the Frontier website for abstract deadlines (some are in mid February) and updates.

Call for Panels and Papers: Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) 16th Annual Meeting at the Central Asia Program at George Washington University in Washington D.C., October 15-18th, 2015. The conference program will include paper presentations, roundtable forums, keynote speeches and vendor exhibitions. This event is the largest annual gathering of scholars working in Central Eurasian Studies; the program will include an estimated 350 panelists, and we expect that the number of people attending the conference will exceed 500. The conference will feature about 60 panels on topics covering all aspects of the politics, history, culture, and society of the Central Eurasian region, extending from the Caucasus, Iran, and the Volga Basin (Russia) to Tibet, western China, Mongolia, and Siberia, including all of Central and Inner Asia. Several cultural events will be organized around the convention, among other an exhibition of Central Asian Socialist Realism paintings in partnership with the GW Museum/Textile Museum, a cinema club, musical events and a Central Asian food fair. Click here for a link to the call for panels and papers. Inquires may be directed to Maureen Pritchard at <info@centraleurasia.org> or to the conference committee chair, Marlene Laruelle at <laruelle@gwu.edu>.

Prize for GIS Projects in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, Poster Session: Friday, May 1, 2015, Harvard University | Cambridge, Massachusetts. This prize is offered in conjunction with the Howard T. Fisher Prize for Excellence in Geographic Information Science and the Annual Conference of the Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA), which will take place at Harvard University April 30 to May 1, 2015. The theme of this year's conference is "The Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis Lab and Its Legacy." The deadline for submissions is 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 27, 2015. Interested Harvard students should apply via the Fisher Prize website. All other individuals wishing to display a poster should contact poster exhibit coordinator Jeff Blossom for details on uploading a poster and note their interest in the Davis Center prize.  Detailed information about the CGA Conference and the Fisher Prize is available on the CGA website. For inquiries about the Davis Center prize specifically, please contact Sarah Failla, sfailla@fas.harvard.edu, 617-496-5684, or Alexandra Vacroux, vacroux@fas.harvard.edu, 617-496-2446.

The Central Eurasian Studies Society Book Award 2015, deadline for submissions: 1 May 2015. In 2007, CESS established two CESS Book Awards, one for work in the History & Humanities and another for work in the Social Sciences.  This year the award will be made to a book in History & Humanities. For a list of previous winners and a link to the nomination form please see: https://cess.memberclicks.net/book-award Also contact Maureen Pritchard at info@centraleurasia.org to check for nomination requirements as some have changed since the original announcement.
Research Fellowships, Scholarships and Grants
2015-2016 Fulbright Student Fellowships Funded by the US Department Of State (for Mongolian citizens) The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy to Mongolia is now accepting applications for the 2016 -2017 Fulbright Student Fellowship Program.  Fulbright Student Fellowships are part of a U.S. Government-funded academic exchange program and fund graduate-level (M.A., M.S) studies at U.S. universities. Fulbright Student Fellows are selected by the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy. Applicants will be assessed on the contribution that their study would make to greater understanding between the United States and Mongolia, and the likelihood of the applicant performing successfully in a U.S. Academic setting. To qualify, applicants must be a Mongolian citizen, currently living in Mongolia, hold a university degree (at least B.A. or equivalent), and be Fluent in English (hold valid IBT score of 80, Institutional TOEFL 550 or IELTS 6.5). For more information, visit the the US Embassy page.

The Department 'Resilience and Transformation in Eurasia' of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology is offering Postdoctoral and Ph.D. positions
for a new Research Group `Financialization´ led by Chris Hann and Don Kalb, starting on October 1, 2015 (subject to agreement, individual projects may also begin on January 1, 2016 or April 1, 2016). Please submit your application electronically by 30 April 2015 following the link for vacancies on our homepage. Visit: http://www.mpg.de/8809257/postdoc-phd-positions-financialization

Kiva Fellows Program
Kiva (the global microlending non-profit organization) has opened the application process for their Fall 2015 class (KF28) of fellows, who serve a variety of locations including Mongolia. The application deadline for the 28th class of fellows, beginning in September 2015, is May 17, 2015. Candidates accepted into the program are required to attend a five-day training program in San Francisco, from August 31-September 4, 2015. You can find a job description for the Kiva Fellows here, and for more information about the Kiva's programs, including the Kiva Zip program you can visit their website or contact Kiva at kivafellows@kiva.org.

Resources
Mongolian Studies Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mongolianstudies/ A public place for sharing articles and videos, calls for papers for journals and conferences, solicitations for research assistance, and other announcements of interest to those of us who study contemporary and historical Mongolia and Mongolian things from an academic perspective. The preference is to post in English or Mongolian, but all languages are welcome. Likewise, we invite members of all academic disciplines to join: history, anthropology, biology, archeology, ethnomusicology, religious studies, linguistics, environmental studies, etc.

Mongolia and Lake Hovsgol GIS Data Repository
ACMS 2014 Summer Research Fellow Chris Free has put together a repository of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data from his research in Mongolia and more specifically at Lake Hovsgol.  Check it out via his website:
Mongolia GIS data: http://marine.rutgers.edu/~cfree/gis-data/mongolia-gis-data/
Lake Hovsgol GIS data: http://marine.rutgers.edu/~cfree/gis-data/lake-hovsgol-gis-data/

Dissertation Reviews
now includes a section on Inner and Central Asia: http://dissertationrev iews.org/archives/category/review/innercentralasia

Asian Highlands Research Network [AH-RN] is a scholarly discussion group associated with the journal Asian Highlands Perspectives. This group focuses on the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions, including the Southeast Asian Massif, Himalayan Massif, the Extended Eastern Himalayas, the Mongolian Plateau, and other contiguous areas. We aim to promote exploration of cross-regional commonalities in history, culture, language, and socio-political context not served by current academic forums. AH-RN will be of interest to Sinologists, Tibetologists, Mongolists, and South and Southeast Asianists. We welcome group members to share information about events and publications related to the study of the Asian Highlands.
Services: timely and exclusive reviews of new books in the field; semi-regular roundup of new open access publications; announcements
of new publications from Asian Highlands Perspectives.
AH-RN is a private group. To join, please contact: Gerald.Roche[at]ymail.com.
For more on Asian Highlands Perspectives:
http://www.plateauculture.org/asian-highlands-perspectives
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/asianhig hlandsperspectives

TheDukha Ethnoarchaeological Project. The primary goal of the DukhaEthnoarchaeological Project is the development of spatial theory of human behavior for application to archaeological problems. Visit the website at:https://sites.google.com/site/dukhaethnoarch/ .

Asian Politics and History Association. Asian Politics and History Association is a non-political, non-profit academic society organized by scholars of Asian studies. Established in 2011 in Hong Kong, APHA currently has members from Asian-Pacific, European and North American countries. APHA supports the Journal of Asian Politics & History, an academic journal published twice a year beginning in October 2012. Visit the website at:http://www.aphahk.org.

Juniper: Online Database for Mongolian and Siberian Studies. This new French scientific tool is created at the initiative of the Centre for Mongolian and Siberian EPHE. It aims to bring together texts (native), images and multimedia on the peoples of Mongolia and Siberia. Several galleries of images are presented, including collections of old prints and a new series of old photographs of the Tuvan National Museum. Sheets populations gather essential information and links to documents relating to the peoples of Northern Asia. Subject files (kinship, Personalia, shamanism and soon others) allow you to browse the data according to thematic itineraries. The bibliography contains references to books and articles, some of which have been digitized and can be downloaded for researchers. Visit: www.base- juniper.org.

Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (SORA). Recently the University of New Mexico Library officially announced the launch of the new, upgraded Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (SORA). The ornithological community is once again indebted to the UNM library for investing in the open access distribution of our historical ornithological literature. SORA has been moved to a new platform that will allow the resource to grow and expand over time. Many of the SORA journal titles have been updated with additional articles, and a new ornithological title has been added to the site. SORA now offers a number of new features for users and provides tools for journal publishers to update the SORA repository directly, with little or no technical support. All of these improvements have been needed for some time, and the UNM Libraries SORA team appreciates your collective patience; it has taken over a year to convert the entire SORA article holdings and prepare the new site for production. A number of ongoing improvements are still in the works for 2014, and as with any major system upgrade, there are a countless number of small details that still require attention. The new URL to the site is http://sora.unm.edu.

The Mongolist is a website dedicated to sharing knowledge about Mongolian politics, business, and society. The website is an ever growing resource built on data and information collected on the Internet and in Mongolia. The aim of this website is to make understanding the complexity of the rapid social and economic change occurring in Mongolia not only accessible but also rewarding. The underlying principle guiding the development of all content on this website is evidence based investigation. Whenever possible, opinion, conjecture, and pure guesswork are replaced with facts, data, and extrapolation. And, when this is not possible, opinion, conjecture, and pure guesswork are advertised as such. Visit: http://www.themongolist.com/

Education About Asia (EAA) has become an essential resource for teachers dealing with Asian themes or topics; both in the broad trans-continental and regional contexts. Conceived as a publication for K-12 faculty, it has in fact proved to be extremely helpful for higher education faculty seeking insights on many subjects. The Asian Studies outreach activities of many colleges and universities have greatly benefited from EAA materials. Register (for free) to access approximately 900 articles from all thirty-seven back issues from 1996-2008: http://www.asian-studies.org/EAA/index.htm and subscribe to the Print Edition at https://www.asian-studies.org/EAA- Subscriptions.htm.

Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center: Indiana University’s IAUNRC has updated its website to include not only its regular newsletters but podcasts, lecture videos, teaching resources and more:http://www.iu.edu/~iaunrc/.

Mongolia Focus (formerly “Mongolia Today”): “This blog is an attempt by three avid Mongolia watchers to share their observations about current developments in Mongolia.” By Julian Dierkes and Dalaibulanii Byambajav, social scientists at the University of British Columbia, this blog mostly follows Mongolian politics and the mining sector. Visit: http://blogs.ubc.ca/mongolia/.
Other News and Events
Upcoming events in the United States:

North America - Mongolia Business Council (NAMBC) 25th Anniversary Annual General Meeting and Investors Forum
JW Marriott Hotel, Washington, DC, April 20-22

This year's speakers include US Ambassador Piper Campbell, Bat-Amgalan Boldbaatar, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, and Ambassador to the US B. Altangerel. Visit the NAMBC website for up to date information about the meeting, including links to the program and registration information.

9th Annual International Mongolian Studies Conference hosted by the Mongolian Cultural Center (MCC) in partnership with the Embassy of Mongolia, May 8-10, 2015 at the Embassy of Mongolia in Washington, DC. Full program for this three-day event can be found at the MCC Facebook page.

In Mongolia:

Monthly Biobeers Talk:
Biobeers is a monthly gathering of government and NGO staff, biologists,researchers,and other professionals interested in conservation. Each month, Biobeers sponsors presentations on topics relevant to Mongolian conservation, followed by an informal gathering to discuss activities and issues of interest. Biobeers is an opportunity to find out what is happening in the field of conservation in Mongolia, talk informally to other researchers and peers in your field, and share information about issues critical to the environment and people of Mongolia. Biobeers is organised by the Zoological Society of London's Steppe Forward Programme and the Wildlife Conservation Society. At Biobeers the beer is on us! Join the Yahoo! Group Mongolbioweb for announcements.

Upcoming in June:

Building Resilience of Mongolia’s Rangelands: A Trans-disciplinary Research Conference, June 9-10, 2015, Blue Sky Hotel, Ulaanbaatar. Visit conference website or Colorado State University's Rangeland Social-Ecological Systems Research Lab Facebook page for more information.


Recent Publications

Faces of the Wolf, by Bernard Charlier (Brill, 2015). In this work, Bernard Charlier explores the role of the wolf in the ways Mongolian nomadic herders relate to their natural environment and to themselves.  More information on this book can be found at Brill's website: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004271135

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals: Image, Monument and Landscape in Ancient North Asia by Esther Jacobson-Tepfer (Oxford University Press, 2015).
This book explores the archaeology of myth within North Asia from the pre-Bronze Age through the early Iron Age. It is the first study to explore the interweaving of petroglyphic imagery, stone monuments and landscape context to reconstruct the traditions of myth and belief of ancient hunters and herders. The ancient taiga, steppe and mountain steppe of Mongolia and the region to the north gave rise to a mythic narrative of birth, death and transformation. Within that tale reflecting the hardship of life of ancient nomadic hunters and herders, the hunter, the mother of animals and the stag are central protagonists. That is not, however, the order in which they appeared in prehistory. We tend to privilege the hero hunter of the Bronze Age and his re-incarnation as a warrior in the Iron Age. But before him and, in a sense, behind him was a female power, half animal-half human. From her came permission to hunt the animals of the taiga, and by her they were replenished. She was, in other words, the source of the hunter’s success. The stag was a latecomer to this tale, a complex symbol of death and transformation embedded in what ultimately became a struggle for priority between animal mother and hero hunter.
From the region in which this narrative is set there are no written texts to illuminate prehistory. Hundreds of burials across the steppe reveal little relating to myth and belief before the late Bronze Age. What they tell us is that uncertain people and cultures came and went, leaving behind huge stone mounds, altars and standing stones as well as thousands of images pecked and painted on stone. This book uses that material as well as ethnographic materials to reconstruct the prehistory of myth and belief in ancient North Asia; it does so by placing stone monuments and imagery within the context of the physical landscape and by considering all three elements as reflections of the archaeology of belief. Within that process, paleoenvironmental forces, economic innovations and changing social order served as pivots of mythic transformation. They underlie the long transition from animal mother to the apotheosis of hero hunter and warrior in North Asia.

The Mongol Century: Visual Cultures of Yuan China, 1271–1368 by Shane McCausland (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2014). The Mongol Century explores the visual world of China's Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the spectacular but relatively short-lived regime founded by Khubilai Khan, regarded as the pre-eminent khanate of the Mongol empire. This book illuminates the Yuan era—full of conflicts and complex interactions between Mongol power and Chinese heritage—by delving into the visual history of its culture, considering how Mongol governance and values imposed a new order on China’s culture and how a sedentary, agrarian China posed specific challenges to the Mongols' militarist and nomadic lifestyle. Shane McCausland explores how an unusual range of expectations and pressures were placed on Yuan culture: the idea that visual culture could create cohesion across a diverse yet hierarchical society, while balancing Mongol desires for novelty and display with Chinese concerns about posterity. Fresh and invigorating, The Mongol Century explores, in fascinating detail, the visual culture of this brief but captivating era of East Asian history.

Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil, 200-600, by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2014). Between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the year 600, more than thirty dynasties, kingdoms, and states rose and fell on the eastern side of the Asian continent. The founders and rulers of those polities represented the spectrum of peoples in North, East, and Central Asia. Nearly all of them built palaces, altars, temples, tombs, and cities, and almost without exception, the architecture was grounded in the building tradition of China. Illustrated with more than 475 color and black-and-white photographs, maps, and drawings, Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil uses all available evidence—Chinese texts, secondary literature in six languages, excavation reports, and most important, physical remains—to present the architectural history of this tumultuous period in China’s history. Its author, Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, arguably North America’s leading scholar of premodern Chinese architecture, has done field research at nearly every site mentioned, many of which were unknown twenty years ago and have never been described in a Western language.

Recent Outer Mongolian International Relations: a Time Capsule (e-book), by Dr. Jon D. Holstine. This is a "revised version of a master's thesis describing Mongolian foreign affairs through 1962, based on open sources. Originally copyrighted 1965 through University Microfilms," and with a foreword by Dr. Alicia Campi. This historical introduction traces Central Asian political developments involving the Mongols after the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368 until the rise of Communist China. Subsequent chapters chronicle relations of the Mongolian People's Republic with the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, other nations, and the United Nations. Written from translations of the Soviet and mainland Chinese press, news accounts, and UN documents, the book provides a record of the MPR's publicly reported diplomatic dealings. It emphasizes the significance of Mongolia's place in the complex of Chinese inner Asian politics, with attention to the role of Lamaist Buddhism (the Tibetan connection). This is a newly edited work.

Chanter, s'attacher et transmettre chez les Darhad de Mongolie [Singing, attachment and transmission among the Darhad of Mongolia], by Laurent Legrain (Centre d'Études Mongoles et Sibériennes (EPHE), 2014). For more information about this publication in French, please visit the editor’s website: http://emscat.revues.org/2476

Buddhism in Mongolian History, Culture, and Society, by Vesna A. Wallace (Oxford University Press, January 2015) explores the unique elements of Mongolian Buddhism while challenging its stereotyped image as a mere replica of Tibetan Buddhism. Vesna A. Wallace brings together an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars to explore the interaction between the Mongolian indigenous culture and Buddhism, the features that Buddhism acquired through its adaptation to the Mongolian cultural sphere, and the ways Mongols have constructed their Buddhist identity. The contributors explore the ways that Buddhism retained unique Mongolian features through Qing and Mongol support, and bring to light the ways in which Mongolian Buddhists saw Buddhism as inseparable from "Mongolness." They show that by being greatly supported by Mongol and Qing empires, suppressed by the communist governments, and experiencing revitalization facilitated by democratization and the challenges posed by modernity, Buddhism underwent a series of transformations while retaining unique Mongolian features.The book covers historical events, social and political conditions, and influential personages in Mongolian Buddhism from the sixteenth century to the present, and addresses the artistic and literary expressions of Mongolian Buddhism and various Mongolian Buddhist practices and beliefs.

Sinophobia: Anxiety, Violence, and the Making of Mongolian Identity, by Franck Bille (University of Hawaii Press, December 2014). Sinophobia is a timely and ground-breaking study of the anti-Chinese sentiments currently widespread in Mongolia. Graffiti calling for the removal of Chinese dot the urban landscape, songs about killing the Chinese are played in public spaces, and rumours concerning Chinese plans to take over the country and exterminate the Mongols are rife. Such violent anti-Chinese feelings are frequently explained as a consequence of China's meteoric economic development, a cause of much anxiety for her immediate neighbours and particularly for Mongolia, a large but sparsely populated country that is rich in mineral resources. Other analysts point to deeply entrenched antagonisms and to centuries of hostility between the two groups, implying unbridgeable cultural differences. Franck Bille challenges these reductive explanations. Drawing on extended fieldwork, interviews, and a wide range of sources in Mongolian, Chinese, and Russian, he argues that anti-Chinese sentiments are not a new phenomenon but go back to the late socialist period (1960-1990) when Mongolia's political and cultural life was deeply intertwined with Russia's. Through an in-depth analysis of media discourses, Bille shows how stereotypes of the Chinese emerged through an internalisation of Russian ideas of Asia, and how they can easily extend to other Asian groups such as Koreans or Vietnamese. He argues that the anti-Chinese attitudes of Mongols reflect an essential desire to distance themselves from Asia overall and to reject their own Asianness. The spectral presence of China, imagined to be everywhere and potentially in everyone, thus produces a pervasive climate of mistrust, suspicion, and paranoia. Through its detailed ethnography and innovative approach, Sinophobia makes a critical intervention in racial and ethnic studies by foregrounding Sinophobic narratives and by integrating psychoanalytical insights into its analysis. In addition to making a useful contribution to the study of Mongolia, it will be essential reading for anthropologists, sociologists, and historians interested in ethnicity, nationalism, and xenophobia.

The Lama Question: Violence, Sovereignty, and Exception in Early Socialist Mongolia, by Christopher Kaplonski (University of Hawaii Press, December 2014). Before becoming the second socialist country in the world (after the Soviet Union) in 1921, Mongolia had been a Buddhist feudal theocracy. Combatting the influence of the dominant Buddhist establishment to win the hearts and minds of the Mongolian people was one of the most important challenges faced by the new socialist government. It would take almost a decade and a half to resolve the "lama question," and it would be answered with brutality, destruction, and mass killings. Chris Kaplonski examines this critical, violent time in the development of Mongolia as a nation-state and its ongoing struggle for independence and recognition in the twentieth century. Unlike most studies that explore violence as the primary means by which states deal with their opponents, The Lama Question argues that the decision to resort to violence in Mongolia was not a quick one; neither was it a long-term strategy nor an out-of control escalation of orders but the outcome of a complex series of events and attempts by the government to be viewed as legitimate by the population. Kaplonski draws on a decade of research and archival resources to investigate the problematic relationships between religion and politics and geopolitics and bio politics in early socialist Mongolia, as well as the multitude of state actions that preceded state brutality. By examining the incidents and transformations that resulted in violence and by viewing violence as a process rather than an event, his work not only challenges existing theories of political violence, but also offers another approach to the anthropology of the state. In particular, it presents an alternative model to philosopher Georgio Agamben's theory of sovereignty and the state of exception. The Lama Question will be of interest to scholars and students of violence, the state, bio politics, Buddhism, and socialism, as well as to those interested in the history of Mongolia and Asia in general.

From Yuan to Modern China to Mongolia: The Writings of Morris Rossabi, by Morris Rossabi (Brill, December 2014). This wide-ranging work, consisting of selected essays of Morris Rossabi, reflects the diverse interests of a leading scholar of China and Inner Asia. It encompasses the eras from the thirteenth century to the present, territories stretching from China to Mongolia to Central Asia and to the Middle East, and religions from Islam to Nestorian Christianity to Judaism and Confucianism in East, Central, and West Asia.
Rossabi first challenged the conventional wisdom concerning traditional Chinese foreign relations by showing the pragmatism of Chinese officials who were not bound by Confucian strictures and stereotypes about foreigners and were actually knowledgeable about neighboring regions. His studies of the territories surrounding China led to the discovery of a major omission in historical writing—the lack of a biography of Khubilai Khan, one of the most renowned rulers in Eurasian history. His biography of Khubilai resulted in further studies of the Mongolian legacy on global history and of the significant role of women in the Mongolian empire. His repeated travels in Mongolia, in turn, stimulated an interest in modern Mongolia, especially the turbulence following the turbulence after the collapse of socialism in 1990, a subject he writes about in this book. The need for greater public knowledge and awareness of China, Mongolia, Central Asia, the Silk Roads, and Islam in Asia prompted Rossabi to write general, occasionally pedagogical, articles about these topics for a wider audience.

Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire: Archaeology, Mobility, and Culture, by William Honeychurch (Springer, November 2014). This monograph uses the latest archaeological results from Mongolia and the surrounding areas of Inner Asia to propose a novel understanding of nomadic statehood, political economy, and the nature of interaction with ancient China. In contrast to the common view of the Eurasian steppe as a dependent periphery of Old World centers, this work views Inner Asia as a locus of enormous influence on neighboring civilizations, primarily through the development and transmission of diverse organizational models, technologies, and socio-political traditions. This work explores the spatial management of political relationships within the pastoral nomadic setting during the first millennium BCE and argues that a culture of mobility, horse-based transport, and long-distance networking promoted a unique variant of statehood. Although states of the eastern steppe were geographically large and hierarchical, these polities also relied on techniques of distributed authority, multiple centers, flexible structures, and ceremonialism to accommodate a largely mobile and dispersed populace. This expertise in “spatial politics” set the stage early on for the expansionistic success of later Asian empires under the Mongols and Manchus. Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire brings a distinctly anthropological treatment to the prehistory of Mongolia and is the first major work to explore key issues in the archaeology of eastern Eurasia using a comparative framework. The monograph adds significantly to anthropological theory on interaction between states and outlying regions, the emergence of secondary complexity, and the growth of imperial traditions. Based on this approach, the window of Inner Asian prehistory offers a novel opportunity to investigate the varied ways that complex societies grow and the processes articulating adjacent societies in networks of mutual transformation.

The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality: Studies in Anthropological History, by Denise Aigle (Brill, October 2014). In The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, Denise Aigle presents the Mongol empire as a moment of contact between political ideologies, religions, cultures and languages, and, in terms of reciprocal representations, between the Far East, the Muslim East, and the Latin West. The first part is devoted to “The memoria of the Mongols in historical and literary sources” in which she examines how the Mongol rulers were perceived by the peoples with whom they were in contact. In “Shamanism and Islam” she studies the perception of shamanism by Muslim authors and their attempts to integrate Genghis Khan and his successors into an Islamic framework. The last sections deal with geopolitical questions involving the Ilkhans, the Mamluks, and the Latin West. Genghis Khan’s successors claimed the protection of “Eternal Heaven” to justify their conquests even after their Islamization.Historical Atlas of Northeast Asia, 1590-2010: Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Siberia by Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (September 2014, Columbia University Press. Cloth, 352 pages, 78 Maps, ISBN: 978-0-231-16070-4). This atlas tracks the political configuration of Northeast Asia in ten-year segments from 1590 to 1890, in five-year segments from 1890 to 1960, and in ten-year segments from 1960 to 2010, delineating the distinct history and importance of the region. The text follows the rise and fall of the Qing dynasty in China, founded by the semi-nomadic Manchus; the Russian colonization of Siberia; the growth of Japanese influence; the movements of peoples, armies, and borders; and political, social, and economic developments—reflecting the turbulence of the land that was once the world’s “cradle of conflict.” Compiled from detailed research in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, Dutch, German, Mongolian, and Russian sources, the Historical Atlas of Northeast Asia incorporates information made public with the fall of the Soviet Union and includes fifty-five specially drawn maps, as well as twenty historical maps contrasting local and outsider perspectives. Four introductory maps survey the region’s diverse topography, climate, vegetation, and ethnicity.