Customer Reviews

Mongolia: Travels in the Untamed Land

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This is a fascinating book about Mongolia written at the end of the Socialist period. It gives good insight into Mongolia and is one of the few books that deals with greater Mongolia (i.e. including Inner Mongolia in China and the Mongolian portions of Russia). Well written and it covers a nice range of topics. However, it is now a bit dated and there are several inaccuracies in the book (probably because information about Mongolia at that time was hard to come by). Similarly, I'd quibble with the cover - which is actually a photo of two Kazakh eagle hunters. Overall, minor quibbles and if you are interested in the modern-day Mongols, get this book.

I am not a great reviewer of historical material. having that out of the way, I appreciated the journeys, descriptions of landscape, insertion of histories, cultural & political unrest. I was unaware of the great not so publicized sufferings of the mongolian people, the Russian butchering of innocent people for political ideaology. how could any people survive these ordeals is a testement to the spirit strength of these peoples. I am in the process of wanting to learn more in terms of archeology & geography of this part of the world. I do not always appreciate Jasper's description of cultural & religious affairs & find his understanding of Buddhism lacking. I think that he tries diligently to report as much as able & perhaps his sometimes lack of in depth understanding has to be sacrificed if it was even there to begin with. I enjoy the fact that Jasper is British & gives a different perspective for that reason. I think that his writting is confusing at times &I needed to re read sections of paragraphs regarding the paraphrasing of word structure. Other people may not have this problem. Of course, I have problems at times understanding the different dialects of English.I think overall that this is an important book to read & I have already bought another of the author's books to read. This book provided for me a much needed education of worlds whose world views, history & so on was different then the world I am accustomed. I experience an expansion of mind experience upon reading this book.