New Reference Book about Mongolia

You may have heard of Genghis Khan, but who was Bogd Khan? What happened during the great purge of 1937? What is the difference between the Great Khural and the Little Khural?

How many provinces does Mongolia have, and what are they called? Who are the members of the government? How has China’s attitude towards Mongolia changed? Is the Mongolian “death worm” (olgoi khorkhoi) a threat to tourists? If you need to find the answers to these and other questions about Mongolia, the book for you is the third enlarged edition of the Historical Dictionary of Mongolia by Alan Sanders, the well-known British Mongolist, published in May by the Scarecrow Press, part of the Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group. It updates and greatly expands on the second edition with over 1,000 cross-referenced alphabetical entries about important Mongolian people, places, events and institutions, as well as significant political, economic, social and cultural aspects of Mongolian life from Genghis Khan’s times to the present day.

The closer readers get to modern Mongolia, the greater the detail Sanders provides. The hundreds of short biographies of historical and contemporary Mongolians range from the members of the “golden family” to the members of the current Great Khural. There are additional entries about Mongolia’s neighbours and their territories inhabited by Mongol tribes, and descriptions of Mongolia’s relations with such major states as Russia, China, the U.S. and U.K. The dictionary also has a detailed introductory essay, an up-to-date chronology, extensive bibliography, and several appendices, plus 34 photographs taken by the author.

Alan Sanders is an independent scholar and freelance writer, former Lecturer in Mongolian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, London. A BBC journalist during the 1970s-1980s, he wrote regularly about Mongolian current affairs for the Far Eastern Economic Review, published in Hong Kong. Since then he has produced books and book chapters about Mongolia and has contributed articles to yearbooks and encyclopaedias, including Britannica. Sanders also wrote a Mongolian phrasebook for tourists and a basic grammar, Colloquial Mongolian, in collaboration with Jantsangiin Bat-Ireedui. In April 2007 Sanders was awarded the Mongolian Order of the Pole Star for promoting British-Mongolian relations, Mongolian studies in Britain, and Mongolian history and culture.

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