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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book Ruined by Publisher, June 6, 2001
This review is from: Across Mongolian Plains: A Naturalists Account of China's "Great Northwest" (Paperback)
Across Mongolian Plains is one of the classic accounts of early 20th Century Hunting in Central Asia. It is also an excellent account of Mongolia prior to the Communist takeover in 1923. I can find no faults with the book as written by Andrews. However, my personal opinion of this edition is that it is not worth the money asked for it. It is a poorly made paperback, and the publisher has not reproduced any of the original photographs with the one exception being the frontis, which in my copy looks like a cheesy Xerox. This book is still available in the 1920's Blue Ribbon reprint, in hardback with photos for less than this "new" paperback. I am VERY dissapointed with this edition. Save your money and search out an original copy, you will find it far more satisfying. The first edition D. Appleton & Co. edition is still available as well.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ian Myles Slater on: A Period Piece, January 6, 2005
This review is from: Across Mongolian Plains: A Naturalists Account of China's "Great Northwest" (Paperback)
I have a copy of the 1921 Blue Ribbon "popular' edition (possibly an undated later reprinting) of "Across Mongolian Plains," and will not contribute to the debate on the quality of the paperback edition (see the two earlier reviews). I do think it is important to point out that the book belongs to the early twentieth century, and reflects its values. Readers should be prepared to make allowances for this, or not bother. Of course, those who pass it by will be missing some first-class storytelling. Andrews, who first came to the attention of scientists as a skilled taxidermist, shows his enthusiasm for turning live animals into specimens for mounting. Despite praise of individual Asian acquaintances, he falls into ethnic stereotypes whenever he deals with nations or groups for any length of time. Some of his judgements on foreign cultures must have seemed odd, even at the time. Maybe the decline of Lamaism would restore the "virility of the Mongol nation" -- whatever that means. But if it means anything, why would he find it so desirable? If Andrews didn't remember Genghis Khan, the Chinese and the Russians certainly did! Ironically, the expedition seems to have made both the first and last Western observations of some traditional Mongolian Buddhist religious observances, later swept away in the aftermath of Russian and Chinese revolutions. Anyone hoping for accounts of fossil-hunting in the Gobi Desert will also be in for an unpleasant surprise. That belonged to subsequent expeditions, in later years. Readers interested in the context of this and later Andrews expeditions will probably find Charles Gallenkamp's "Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central Asiatic Expeditions" their most helpful guide. (Reposted from my "anonymous" review of September 10, 2003.)
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unique document on the Mongolian plains, zoology, ethnography in the 1920's, July 31, 2007
This edition is the anastatic copy of the original 1920's book. As all attempts of this kind it has its drawbacks, that in this case consist mostly of the absence of the photographs, that in the original edition were by Andrews' wife Yvette. This book is the abridged journal of what was successively known as the Second Asiatic Zoological Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History carried out in 1920 in Mongolia and parts of China. Roy Champman Andrews was a great explorer and comunicator and had already written two books one on whale hunting and another together with his wife of a previous expedition in China in 1916-17. After a brief introduction on the history of Mongolia and its political turmoils, the book is essentially a journal of a year of roaming through the rolling plains of Northwestern China and Mongolia, with the intent to hunt animals for the Museum's permanent exhibitions. The first journeys are by car, from which it is easier to shoot at the fast antelopes and wolves of the plains. After a stay in Urga (the modern Ulan Batar, capital city of modern Mongolia),that is maybe the book's most interesting part because of the description of the temples and cerimonies that do not exist anymore, Andrews and his wife decide to spend some time as the nomads do on horse back. They hunt marmots and enjoy the plains among the friendly nomads. Successively Andrews decides to visit the Northern Forest above Urga, but the hunting is to dangerous for his wife, that is left back. Together with Harry Caldwell they look for and savagely hunt roe buck, waipiti, argali, goral and whatever else moves. This book is obviously dated, and if a modern naturalist reads it the hair will surely stand strait on his head. The last chapters are really a slaughter house of some of the worlds most beautiful animals with the intent of conserving them for knowledge of the future generations. However, if read in the appropriate frame of mind it is a fantastic documentation of long ago ideals, mentality and facts, that are described with impartiality but absolutely no empathy differently to what will successively be done by for example Lattimore and others. Andrews reaches almost a poetic evocation when he describes landscape and colors, expecially that of the fur of the animals he kills. This book reminded me of the film "Dersu Uzala". A very interesting antiquarian read.
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