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Customer Reviews (27)

A fascinating chapter in the Russian Civil War
In a war which saw the rise and fall of governments, countries and even a federation or two the story of Ungern-Sternberg is exceptional. A baron of German origins, a faithful soldier to Czar Nicholas II and a Buddhist he managed to get a reputation for cruelty in a war reknowned for its cruelty. He fought for the White cause against Bolshevism and then sought to become the ruler of Mongolia, a country he had come to know and admire.

If this story was a novel you would dismiss it as melodramatic. But the Bloody Baron was real and he carved his own place in history, even if it is a fairly unknown place today.

An incredible tale
This is an extraordinary story of a Russian nobleman, who sought to carve out an empire for himself in Mongolia.
A detailed but highly readable book.

Fascinating and frightening
Baron Roman Ungern Von Sternberg is one of those peripheral characters who always gets brought up in passing: he's too colorful to overlook, but arguably too minor to warrant extensive coverage. He was name-dropped in Robert Edgerton's Warriors of the Rising Sun, Peter Hopkirk's Setting the East Ablaze, David Mitchell's 1919: Red Mirage and Richard Luckett's The White Generals, to name just a few of the books I'd encountered him in. The Mad Baron was overdue for a full-length biography, and James Palmer brings him to vivid and grisly life.

The Bloody Baron was a nobleman of German descent, who early on revealed a predilection for violence and sadism - and an interest in Eastern mysticism. He had a fairly successful military career, decorated for service in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I, and found himself on the White side of the Russian Civil War, fighting for the restoration of the Tsar. Already showing a penchant for violence, he was dispatched to Mongolia in the waning days of the conflict, converting to Buddhism, raising a rag-tag multi-national army and conquering Mongolia amidst much bloodshed. His disastrous administration and the encroachment of the Red Army only convinced Ungern to greater ambition - to try and recreate Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire and extirpate Jews and Bolsheviks.

Palmer ably shows two salient points about Ungern: that he was very much a product of his time, and that he was a harbinger of things to come. As horrifying as Ungern's pogroms and atrocities were, in a sense, they were a logical (or illogical) extension of one of the cruellest wars in history. For all his appalling cruelty, Ungern was a piker compared to other leaders, Red and White, in more powerful positions. In fact, the Reds, in "liberating" Mongolia from Ungern, would commit far worse crimes than his short-lived regime. The primary appeal is not Ungern's atrocities, but his sheer weirdness: a demented Russian nobleman with a personal religion. He has few redeeming features as such, but remains a gruesomely compelling figure throughout.

What made Ungern unique and dangerous, however, was his ideology: a curious blend of anti-Semitism, Nietzschean superman rhetoric, vaguely-defined occult mysticism and absurd megalomania, he was a clear precursor of the Nazis, who indeed venerated Urgern as a heroic precursor to Hitler. Palmer does make the point that Ungern had no deep understanding of Buddhism per se, but he had enough appeal to garner him thousands of devoted followers, and the love of a nation (apparently, he's still worshipped by some Mongolians). And just twenty years later, the world would be driven to the verge of destruction by a frighteningly similar ideology.

Palmer does a fine job introducing the reader to Mongolia in general, and in particular a branch of Buddhism that endorses violence and mayhem. This is a fascinating topic, largely swept under the rug in the West, where Buddhism is seen as a benign force. Palmer shows this is an incredibly patronizing and limited view: Ungern's crimes were unique mostly for their being perpetrated by a European. He does a slightly-lesser job of depicting Tsarist and Revolutionary Russia, which is perhaps forgivable since it's not his area of expertise.

As a writer, Palmer provides fine prose, with vivid descriptions of towns, set pieces and miitary campaigns. He has a fascinating subject matter and cuts through the veils of myth and distortion to make Urgern a credible (if still horrific) character. His biggest failing is his attempts at psychohistory, telling us to "imagine" certain key scenes in Ungern's life. That sort of "insight" should be saved for a novelist, or at least someone better-qualified than Palmer.

Despite some flaws, The Bloody White Baron is a fascinating - and frightening - book. Monsters always make for fascinating history, and the Mad Baron provides a particularly interesting case of how vicious and depraved humans can be.

A Bloody Interesting Story
This is a very interesting book for a number of reasons.First, it tells the story of Baron Ungern, someone mostly lost in history, the son of an Austrian father and German mother reared in Estonia who was an absolute monarchist and committed to the restoration of the Romanov dynasty.In his younger years, he was a poor student given to severe intemperance, but he distinguished himself as a fierce fighter during World War I.After the fall of the Romanovs, Ungern relocated to the eastern Russian frontier and ultimately into Mongolia where he surrounded himself with a multi-ethnic army and envisioned himself as a latter day Gengis Khan, bent on retaking Russia.

The second contribution of the book is its insights into the consolidation of the Soviet Union.It took a number of years for the Bolsheviks to gain control of the vast reaches of the Russian empire.While I was aware of White Russian opposition, I had not fully realized that that designation applied to a loose coalition of groups whose one common bond was opposition to the Bolsheviks.The book also revealed some of the less serene aspects of Buddhism, particularly as practiced in Mongolia.

Finally, the book takes the reader on a tour of regions of the world little known to Westerners, and here is the book's minor flaw.A few maps would have been a great assitance, and I hope later additions will include them.Place names such as Transbaikal, Dauria, Buriatia and Urga were virtually unknown to me, and I would have liked an easy reference map rather than having to turn to secondary sources that required me to interrupt my read.

Baron Ungern
I liked the last chapter; but most of the book was sort of Hollywood ala Mel Gibson.

I wanted to know more about Mongolia and less about the White Russians.

The White Russians behaved very badly even given the excuse of fleeing the revolution.
Eventually the weary Mongolians handed the Baron back to the Soviets.He was found guilty and he died in front of a firing squad.


I was surprised to read that Taiwan does not have diplomatic relations with Mongolia. As late as 2002 Taiwan still claimed Mongolia!






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Product Description
Mongolia borders Russia to the north and the People's Republic of China to the south, east, and west. The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. It eventually submitted to the Manchu rulers of Qing China in the 17th century. After the Soviet-backed revolution of 1921 it became a one-party state known from 1924 as the Mongolian People's Republic. Following the democratic revolution of 1990, which ushered in multiparty politics and a market economy, the new constitution adopted in 1992 renamed the country Mongolia.The third edition of the Historical Dictionary of Mongolia greatly expands on the previous edition through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, appendixes, and over 1000 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important people, places, events, and institutions, as well as significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Mongolchuudad hamgiin heregtei nom!
I am a Mongol who is learning so much from this encyclopedia. This has become a book which I keep on my desk (or by my bed), and read when I procrastinate or need to look up a topic. I was impressed with the range of coverage--the encyclopedia comments on anything and everything related to Mongols, from the historical to the contemporary. Obviously one book, no matter how great, cannot cover everything in great depth, but this book makes a superb attempt. As a sample, the first five entries are:

Abatai Khan (Ar Mongold Buddiin shashiniig abchirsan khaan)
Abbasid Caliphate (Mongoliin ezent gurentei tulgarsan Arabiin ezed)
Academy of Science (Mongoliin Shinjleh Uhaanii Academi)
Aga Buriat Autonomous Area (Buriadaas taslagdsan Buriadiin neg aimag)
Agriculture (see Animal husbandry and nomadism)...

Some entries are excellent (and very useful) essays on their own right on some very important subjects. The history of the Northern Yuan (a neglected part of the history of Eastern Mongols, from 1368 to 1634) comes to mind as I write this review.

Let me just emphasize one thing: this book focuses on ALL Mongols--not just Mongols of Mongolia, but Mongols who live in Obor (Inner) Mongol, Buriatya, Kalmykia, Khokh Nuur, and so on. Unfortunately, we Mongols from Ulaanbaatar know very little about our brothers and sisters who live beyond our borders. There are two kinds of borders, and both were created by unfriendly neighbors. There is of course the physical one, which separates Mongolia from Russia and China. Then there is a mental border, product of our narrow identity. We do not often include our brothers and sisters (Buriaduud, Obor Mongolchuud) in our definition of "Mongol." This is very sad and unfortunate.

Learning our history will help us redefine our identity of who a "Mongol" is, which I believe is one of the most important challenges of our generation. That is why an encyclopedia like this is so important. I thank Professor Atwood for taking such great care in writing this superb work.

wonderful book
This book is simply amazing! It has virtually all the important information you will need to know on Mongolia and its history. I find it comes in handy whenever I need it and would recommend whoever interested in this part of the world buy a copy.

a must HAVE
this is a MUST HAVE book .... great to refer to as you plow through Mongolian Travel and Adventure Books.....I'm thrilled to own it! Glad it was 'finally' published!

Encyclopedia of Mongolian and the Mongol Empire
This is a gem of historical history of the all of the Mongols, when I mean all, I mean all - Western, Eastern, Southern, and Northern tribes from early times to the present. The book is organized alphabetically and references are made so the reader can obtain further information after each topic.

Kudos to C. Atwood in putting this together!

I would recommend this for all Mongols and non-Mongols to crasp the impact of The Mongol Empire!

If you're Mongol, you may even pick up some knowlege about your own tribal lineage.



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The author’s purpose in writing this book is to use the Mongolian question to illuminate much larger issues of twentieth-century Asian history: how war, revolution, and great-power rivalries induced or restrained the formation of nationhood and territoriality.He thus continues the argument he made in Frontier Passages that on its way to building a communist state, the CCP was confronted by a series of fundamental issues pertinent to China’s transition to nation-statehood.The book’s focus is on the Mongolian question, which ran through Chinese politics in the first half of the twentieth century.Between the Revolution of 1911 and the Communists’ triumph in 1949, the course of the Mongolian question best illustrates the genesis, clashes, and convergence of Chinese and Mongolian national identities and geopoliticalvisions. ... Read more

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This compelling autobiography offers a panoramic view of the daily joys of a traditional Mongolian herding life as well as the hardships of oppressive foreign rule, abetted by avaricious local nobles and monks. Sambuu's story demonstrates the attraction of Communism for the poor and subjugated in an exploitative system. He himself flourished under Communism, becoming ambassador to the Soviet Union during the Stalin era and to North Korea during the Korean War and ultimately president of Mongolia. Enriched by a thoughtful introduction by leading scholar Morris Rossabi that sets the historical stage, this life story of a still-beloved Mongolian illuminates a world few in the West have seen. ... Read more

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The remote vastness of Mongolia has remained somewhat of a mystery to most Westerners - no less so in the 20th century. Homeland of the legendary conqueror Chingiz Khan, in modern times Mongolia itself has been the object of imperial rivalry. For most of the 20th century it was under Soviet domination. Mikhail Gorbachev began the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Mongolia in 1989, a process completed in 1992. By 1996 a coalition of opposition parties triumphed in national elections, and Mongolia launched itself on a new course. It is perhaps the most intriguing of the post-community "transition" societies. This volume examines Mongol history over the past century, embracing not only Mongolia proper but also Mongol communities in Russia and China. Contributions, based on new archival research and the latest fieldwork, are from the world's top experts in the field - including four authors from Mongolia and others from Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Great Britain and the United States. Stephen Kotkin's introductory chapter is an overview of Mongol studies. The essays in part 1 examine Sino-Russian competition over Outer Mongolia.Part 2 looks at international diplomacy in Mongolia, including the role of Japan. Part 3 focuses on contemporary issues ranging from economic and cultural change to emergent elites. A concluding essay surveys Mongolian foreign policy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

An Interesting Collection of Acadmic Essays
This is an interesting collection of academic essays about the history of Mongolia's international relations.It has some very interesting information, some of it well written, but it a collection of independent academic essays and not a coherent book.Not for the casual reader, but also it has some great insights into Mongolia.

Informative in some aspects
I was hoping for something that explained more of the current social and cultural conditions of Mongolia.The title of this book is somewhat misleading, this book is a concise history of Foreign politics imposed on Mogolia and the conditions of foriegn relations with Mongolia, but it does not seem to say much about the attitudes of the Mongolians.This book would be good to cite in a history essay.

A welcome, informative, comprehensive, analytic survey.
In Mongolia In The Twentieth Century: Landlocked Cosmopolitan, Stephen Kotkin and Bruce Elleman draw upon knowledgeable contributors to examine Mongol history over the past century, including Mongol communities inRussia and China. The contributions are based on new archival research andrecent fieldwork by the world's top experts, including four authors fromMongolia, and others from Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Great Britain, and theUnited States. Mongolia In The Twentieth Century surveys the history ofSino-Russian competition over Outer Mongolia; international diplomacyconcerning Outer Mongolia; and Mongolia today including its demography,culture, nationalism, and rapid transformation. Mongolia In The TwentiethCentury is a welcome and informative contribution to international studiesand an essential addition to any academic, governmental, or communitylibrary collection. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from E, published by Earth Action Network, Inc. on May 1, 2002. The length of the article is 464 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. 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.

Citation Details
Title: Saving Mongolia's wild horses.(Brief Article)
Author: Karen L. Kirsch
Publication: E (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2002
Publisher: Earth Action Network, Inc.
Volume: 13Issue: 3Page: 11(2)

Article Type: Brief Article

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Potent names and themes are included in this account of the Christian church among the Mongols. The experiences of the author are weaved into the narrative. ... Read more

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Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era. ... Read more

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Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (30)

The answer is here -- when you're ready
To the questions:
"Why are we here?
Why is the World falling apart and why will none of our institutions stop it.
Why have we, except for technology, gone backwards, culturally when it seems like the Greek culture, the Egyptian culture and many many others were so advanced."

Peter Kingsley gives an amazing answer, and it is that there has always been a mystic tradition, common to the entire race of Man that, if developed, will mature us into True Human Beings.

His book, A Story waiting to Pierce You, develops his premise beautifully and convincingly. It is the tale of a shaman, partly told with shamanic power symbols (the wolf, the impenetrable mountain, the arrow), partly told with Peter's impeccable scholarship and research.

We can rest assured that this will come to pass, though there may be some world wide extinctions between now and then; and that it will be a golden age.

In the mean time we can develop some of the practices he reveals, that will lead to passably golden lives for individuals, right now.

The Quiver
Reading Peter Kingsley's work, and now this new book, 'A Story Waiting to Pierce You', is like waking up from a dream with a magical symbol that you carry and allow to work on you - to pierce you. Kingsley's mission (or transmission) is an uncompromising journey back to our origins for a purpose that you must discover for yourself, alone. This evokes breath-taking wonder for many, and angry defensiveness for some, evidenced by the few vitriolic reviews on this site. The arrow is true in finding its mark, and it's shattering of the breastplate not always welcomed.

Straw Man
In his overly dramatically titled book, Peter Kingsley assumes a great ignorance within society and then proceeds to demolish it. He appears to be a bit out of touch. His tiny, overly footnoted (in half of which he is the source) book he says we believe that reincarnation is the providence of India. Since when? He says that civilizations are caused from Spirit. What isn't? Big whoop. Now you know what the book is about. Do you feel pierced?

To begin with, you won't enjoy this book if you don't feel in sync with Kingsley repetitive, dramatic and coy style. He swans about with plenty of dashes, unnecessary paragraph spacings, semi-colons and few commas. Once in a while he comes up with a really good, pithy sentence:"At the origin of every guess stands someone who knows." I'm guessing he fought his editor tooth and nail.

His faults of thought are legion. A few examples follow. He maintains that Apollo incarnated as Pythagoras "for the sake of a human race that had lost its way." Well, it didn't help much, did it? And Jesus fared no better! Why do we seek for gods when as every true wise person knows, we carry them within us? That's why when Kingsley says the West needed the East to plant seeds, "the fertilizing power of the divine," it makes no sense. We are already "fertilized" if we just pay attention, no matter who we are or where we live in this world. Don't forget, the steam engine was invented on three continents simultaneously by those who had never heard of each other. Don't get me started on the airplane!

Kingsley becomes, I shall put it nicely, poetic in his writing so that meaning is slurred. Drunk on his own passion for his own ideas he can make the reader dizzy trying to figure out time lines and what "it" refers to and, more deeply, how unusual Hermotimus and earlier "shamans" in Greece were. Has he never heard of Delphi?
I think the names they used were priestess and priest? But they, too, lay down, went into trances, journeyed and brought back messages. As I, myself, do this very day. It was ever thus in all cultures.

That's why I object to his depicting Mongol Abaris' journey as speaking "of a purposeful intelligence we can hardly conceive of any more." Oh really? I don't believe that for a second. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assasination of JFK, the coming of the computer, the election of Obama, the Gulf oil spill -- these, too, are huge, purposeful culture-changers. And there are many more. The spiritual intelligence behind these acts is as equal and far reaching as Abaris meeting Pythagoras. Not to mention the arrival of Europeans to America, bringing another metal object to present to the Indians: a musket. They loved that.

Kingsley's blanket and grandiose statements put one off especially in his effort to know what he could not know and which is likely untrue. "As for what they felt (Avars) . . . they never had the slightest interest in leaving any signs or indications behind." Doubtful, seeing as how they were human beings like us. Or, "Then they (Soviets) arrested, tortured, systematically killed every Mongol who even dared do any research into her or his own history." Was Kingsley there?

He even trumpets his spiritual knowledge, written in stone. He mentions the concept of "spiritual war." Naw, not gonna happen. He writes, "But one thing we can be perfectly sure of is that life will never serve us in our search for some lasting sense of superiority." He knows how life will serve us, does he? Ever hear of Donald Trump?

Finally, he says that we "have the strange idea in the West that civilizations just happen: that they come into existence as a hit or miss affair and then we bumble along, creating and inventing and making it better." Perhaps that's true for the most ignorant among us. For the flourishing rest of us we are quite well aware this is not how it goes. He writes like an autistic who cannot focus outside of certain narrow perameters. Is he not familiar with the spiritual icons of our time?Carlos Castaneda? Richard Bach? Jane Roberts? Neale Donald Walshe? Michael Roads? And too many more to mention. These people have all taught what Kingleys appears to think is new information about Life. And may I say that the "purposeful intelligence" behind their writings is extraordinary.

Starting around P. 79 Kingsley gives us some meat to put on the plastic bones he has been serving. He says, "There is no such thing as true movement in this world. We can seem to run, push, dance, fly; make our way into space. But the only movement that really exists is the restlessness of our busy minds."Einstein couldn't have said it better! And neither could a Zen Master!

So I thank Peter Kingsley for giving me the opportunity to run my mind alongside his and hope he will forgive me for disagreeing with the ground over which he is running. I bought this book because of all the great reviews. Now I wish to present to a potential reader another alterntive I wish I had had.

A major disappointment
I've been tremendously impressed and excited by Peter Kingsley's other books and even his scholarly work, so I was thrilled to hear about this new one. It's a crushing disappointment. As I wrote at length in the web magazine "Killing the Buddha" ([...]), Kingsley has fallen into one of the oldest traps of Western spirituality, the fantasy of a spiritual elite that comes down from the high Himalaya to save us. (There are other problems but I'll refer you to the full-length review for those.)

This is probably what happens when you try to create a spiritual tradition out of books the way Kingsley does. He rejects Eastern traditions and apparently thinks that classical scholarship and deep meditative practice can give us back the spiritual life of archaic Greece. That's too tall an order and it boxes him into his own experience too tightly.

It's a real pity, because Kingsley seems like a genuine visionary as well as a fine scholar. He just can't do everything by himself the way he thinks he can, and the emptiness of this book is the proof.

Re-membering.
The past and the future are, too, two sides of a coin that God flips over and over, sprouting creation after creation, being a wild only child. Wild because it is amazing within amazing that through all the coin-flipping, God only deems a few like Peter Kingsley to be necessary. As (or through) workers like Peter Kingsley God self-assists in tracking His own sanity -- for those of us that find a refreshed view of sanity desireable for growing up or something. In this book, my soul's genetic memory was chimed even further back than with his previous book, 'Reality', which together with 'In the Dark Places of Wisdon' actually provides elements of a working foundation for proceeding even further on one's own. To receive the future is to receive the past, and both seem to be required for arriving at the now-so-fashionable "now" with any sure footing. ... Read more

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This important study explores the multifaceted experience of Mongols in China, past and present, as their identity balances precariously between historical memory and their contemporary position as an ethnic minority. Uradyn E. Bulag assesses the intricate relationship between socialism and nationalism that generates both resistance and complicity and defines the moral dilemmas that have confronted Mongols and Chinese in negotiating nationality issues. Written by an indigenous anthropologist trained in the West, the work is informed by the author's sophisticated understanding of theory and personal sense of society and history. Breaking new ground in the study of Chinese and Mongol history and ethnicity, the author offers a fresh interpretation of China viewed from the perspective of its peripheries. ... Read more

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Uyghur People. Simplified Chinese Characters, Uyghur Khaganate, History of Mongolia, Turkic Migration, History of Xinjiang, Altai Mountains, Government of the Han Dynasty, Göktürks, Battle of Talas, Buddhism, Turpan, Chagatai Khanate, Damascus, Timur, Kashmir, Mughal Empire, East Turkestan Independence Movement, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Arch, Diamond in the Dunes, Uyghur Alphabet, Kushan Empire. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by University of Saskatchewan on August 1, 1999. The length of the article is 926 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. 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.

Citation Details
Title: A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, vol. 1, Inner Eurasia from Prehistory to the Mongol Empire.(Brief Article) (book reviews)
Author: Gary Alan Hanson
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 1999
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan
Volume: 34Issue: 2Page: 270

Article Type: Brief Article, Book Review

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