Mongolia, a landlocked country in East Asia, possesses a rich and fascinating culture with a long and storied history. Renowned for its nomadic traditions, Mongolia is known for the legendary empire established by Genghis Khan in the 13th century, which became the largest contiguous empire in history. Mongolian culture is deeply rooted in its pastoral and nomadic heritage. Traditional life revolves around herding livestock, particularly horses, sheep, and camels. Nomadic families live in portable dwellings called yurts, which are easily dismantled and moved as the families follow their grazing animals across the vast Mongolian steppes. The nomadic lifestyle heavily influences Mongolian arts and customs. Mongolian music is characterised by throat singing (Khoomei), a unique vocal technique where singers produce multiple pitches simultaneously. Traditional instruments such as the horsehead fiddle (morin khuur) and the dulcimer-like instrument (yochin) are commonly used. Mongolia’s history stretches back to prehistoric times, with evidence of human habitation dating back thousands of years. Various nomadic tribes inhabited the region, engaging in animal husbandry and developing unique cultural practices. This book will make you experience a captivating journey through Mongolia’s vibrant landscapes, ancient traditions, and proud history. Experience the echoes of the nomadic spirit and the enduring legacy of remarkable people.

Mongolia is landlocked between its neighbors China and Russia in the heart of Asia. For centuries after the disintegration of Genghis Khan's empire it was ruled by one or the other, but in 1990 the Mongols embraced democracy. Now, after two centuries of Manchu stagnation and seventy years of Soviet communism, they are rebuilding their national heritage. Rarely in the news but making progress toward a market economy, this resource-rich but infrastructure-poor country is a land of pioneers, and its greatest asset is the Mongol people, who are friendly, cooperative, ambitious, and well educated. English is now the first foreign language and the country's leaders are forging new partnerships with international investors. Travelers from across the world are drawn to the "land of blue sky" by its picturesque mountains and lakes, flower-carpeted steppes and stony deserts, home to the snow leopard, the wild horse and camel, and the Gobi bear. The broad pasturelands, with herds of grazing livestock, and the traditional lifestyle of the nomads contrast with the busy streets of the capital Ulan Bator, a bustling metropolis of over one million people, modern hotels, apartments, and shops, interspersed with Buddhist monasteries and temples, surrounded by crowded suburbs of traditional felt tents. Mongolia's many attractions range from dinosaur skeletons and the remains of ancient civilizations to relics and reenactments of the Genghis Khan era, and the traditional sports of wrestling, archery, and horse-racing. Culture Smart! Mongolia provides rare insights into contemporary Mongolian society, and offers practical tips on what to expect and how to conduct yourself in order to get the most out of your visit. Despite the undeniable challenges posed by modernity, these warm, tough, adaptable, and hospitable people welcome visitors and are open to the world.

Mongolia remains a beautiful barren land of spectacularly clothed horse-riders, nomadic romance and windswept landscape. But modern Mongolia is now caught between two giants: China and Russia; and known to be home to enormous mineral resources they are keen to exploit. China is expanding economically into the region, buying up mining interests and strengthening its control over Inner Mongolia. Michael Dillon, one of the foremost experts on the region, seeks to tell the modern history of this fascinating country. He investigates its history of repression, the slaughter of the country's Buddhists, its painful experiences under Soviet rule and dictatorship, and its history of corruption. But there is hope for its future, and it now has a functioning parliamentary democracy which is broadly representative of Mongolia's ethnic mix. How long that can last is another question. Short, sharp and authoritative, Mongolia will become the standard text on the region as it becomes begins to shape world affairs.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The startling true history of how one extraordinary man from a remote corner of the world created an empire that led the world into the modern age—by the author featured in Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan. The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made.

Existing textbooks on international relations treat history in a cursory fashion and perpetuate a Euro-centric perspective. This textbook pioneers a new approach by historicizing the material traditionally taught in International Relations courses, and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates and issues. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the international systems that traditionally existed in Europe, East Asia, pre-Columbian Central and South America, Africa and Polynesia. The second part discusses the ways in which these international systems were brought into contact with each other through the agency of Mongols in Central Asia, Arabs in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Indic and Sinic societies in South East Asia, and the Europeans through their travels and colonial expansion. The concluding section concerns contemporary issues: the processes of decolonization, neo-colonialism and globalization – and their consequences on contemporary society. History of International Relations provides a unique textbook for undergraduate and graduate students of international relations, and anybody interested in international relations theory, history, and contemporary politics.

Innovation-making is a classic theme in anthropology that reveals how people fine-tune their ontologies, live in the world and conceive of it as they do. This ethnographic study is an entrance into the world of Buryat Mongol divination, where a group of cursed shamans undertake the 'race against time' to produce innovative remedies that will improve their fallen fortunes at an unconventional pace. Drawing on parallels between social anthropology and chaos theory, the author gives an in-depth account of how Buryat shamans and their notion of fortune operate as 'strange attractors' who propagate the ongoing process of innovation-making. With its view into this long-term 'cursing war' between two shamanic factions in a rural Mongolian district, and the comparative findings on cursing in rural China, this book is a needed resource for anyone with an interest in the anthropology of religion, shamanism, witchcraft and genealogical change. Katherine Swancutt is a Research Fellow in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. She has carried out fieldwork on shamanic religion across Inner Asia, working among Buryats in northeast Mongolia and China since 1999, and among the Nuosu of Southwest China since 2007.

This book celebrates the power of music, dance, and oral narrative to create identities by imaginatively connecting performers and audiences with ethnic and political groupings, global and sacred landscapes, histories and heroes, spirits and gods.Three distinct cultural eras of Mongolian society are represented. Many Mongolsare now performing publicly the diverse traditions of Old Mongolia that they practised in private following the communist revolution of 1921; some are perpetuating the Soviet transformations of those traditions introduced prior to 1990; and yet others are dipping their curly-toed boots into new performance arts as they revel in musical encounters on the global stage. By highlighting the sheer variety ofrepertories, this book illustrates the rich diversity of Mongolia's peoples andperformance arts.An accompanying compact disc contains musical examples linked to the text.Carole Pegg is ethnomusicology editor for the New Grove Dictionary of Musicand Musicians and associate lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge, England. As an ethno-musicologist and musician she has been working with nomadic groups in remote areas of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China, and with urban Mongols in both countries since 1987. She has also toured with Mongol musicians in England and Hong Kong.