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Here you will find information about the American Center for Mongolia Studies Library in Ulaanbaatar, the online library catalog, access online databases and digital archives, and curated research guides on a variety of topics related to the study of Mongolia.

Mongolian Studies

This guide provides an introduction to Mongolian Studies including popular topics, journals, suggested books, and background information.

Mongolian Studies

Research Help

This guide provides an overview of the research process, selected academic resources, sources of information, citation managers, and more

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Research Guides

Research Guides are curated research starters and include relevant links to subject databases, journals, books, and background information. 

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Book Highlights

A Monastery in Time

A Monastery in Time is the first book to describe the life of a Mongolian Buddhist monastery--the Mergen Monastery in Inner Mongolia--from inside its walls. From the Qing occupation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the Cultural Revolution, Caroline Humphrey and Hürelbaatar Ujeed tell a story of religious formation, suppression, and survival over a history that spans three centuries.

Mongolia's Foreign Policy

Strategically located at the crossroads of Central Asia, China, and Russia, Mongolia has long attracted the attention of major world powers. How has this traditionally nomadic, but resource rich, country used a "Wolf Strategy" to establish its own place in the modern world? What challenges does it now face? Answering these questions, Alicia Campi provides a multifaceted examination of the context, formulation, and execution of contemporary Mongolian foreign policy.

Genocide on the Mongolian Steppe

The book documents the atrocities committed against the Southern Mongolians by the Chinese in a massive genocide campaign throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. The two-volume book is the first and only work published outside of China written from the perspective of the victims and survivors.

The Mummies of Urumchi

In the museums of Urumchi, the windswept regional capital of the Uyghur Autonomous Region in Western China -- what we know as Chinese Turkestan -- a collection of ancient mummies lay at the center of an enormous mystery. Some of Urumchi's mummies date back as far as 2,000 years -- contemporary to the famous Egyptian mummies, but even more beautifully preserved, especially their clothing.

Dispatches From Modern Mongolia

For too long, Mongolia has been defined by a stereotype of nomadic herders in a far away land disconnected from the modern world. But this does not capture the daily realities of most Mongolians. In this anthology, readers are shown a new version of what it means to be Mongolian. From the countryside to the city to the far-flung reaches of the diaspora, these stories offer glimpses into the Mongolian life touched by globalism, technology, and time.

New Approaches to Ilkhanid History

As the title implies, New Approaches to Ilkhanid History explores new methodologies and avenues of research for the Mongol state in the Middle East. Although the majority of the Ilkhanate was situated in Iran, this volume considers other regions within the state and moves away from focusing on the center and the Ilkhanid court. New consideration is given to the source material, particularly how they have been composed, but also how the sources can inform on the provinces of the Ilkhanate. Several authors also examine lower-tier personages, groups, and institutions.

The Horde

The Mongols are widely known for one thing: conquest. In the first comprehensive history of the Horde, the western portion of the Mongol empire that arose after the death of Chinggis Khan, Marie Favereau shows that the accomplishments of the Mongols extended far beyond war. For three hundred years, the Horde was no less a force in global development than Rome had been. It left behind a profound legacy in Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, palpable to this day.

Mongolian Sound Worlds

Music cultures today in rural and urban Mongolia and Inner Mongolia emerge from centuries-old pastoralist practices that were reshaped by political movements in the twentieth century. Mongolian Sound Worlds investigates the unique sonic elements, fluid genres, social and spatial performativity, and sounding objects behind new forms of Mongolian music--forms that reflect the nation's past while looking towards its globalized future.

Nomads

The remarkable story of how nomads have fostered and refreshed civilization throughout our history. Moving across millennia, Nomads explores the transformative and often bloody relationship between settled and mobile societies.

Mixed Messages

Mixed Messages shows that belonging in Asian Russia is a dynamic process that one cannot capture analytically by using straightforward categories of ethnolinguistic identity.

Reins of Liberation

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.

Eat the Buddha

Award-winning journalist Barbara Demick explores one of the most hidden corners of the world. She tells the story of a Tibetan town perched eleven thousand feet above sea level that is one of the most difficult places in all of China for foreigners to visit.

Danzanravjaa: A Song Arising from Contemplation. Selected Poems

The fifth Noyon Hutagt, Danzanravjaa (1803-1856) is arguably Mongolia’s most influential Buddhist poet. A fervent nationalist, born during a time of political upheaval, his powerful and determined personality, melded with his deep understanding of Buddhist practice, is reflected in his lyrical and subversive style.

The Religions of Mongolia

In this study Walther Heissig focuses on the existence in Mongolia of religious forms which have more ancient roots even than Buddhism. Professor Heissig is mainly concerned in the present book with those beliefs and concepts which belong to the non-Buddhist folk religion of the Mongols.

The Phonology of Mongolian

This book provides the first comprehensive description of the phonology and phonetics of Standard Mongolian, known as the Halh (Khalkha) dialect and spoken in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of the Republic of Mongolia. It is also the first account in any language of the historical phonology of the entire Mongolian group of languages. The synchronic phonology is based on data collected by the authors and their own phonological analyses.

The Urban Life of the Qing Dynasty

From 1840 onwards, the traditional system of a feudal society suffered constant failure and humiliation in face of bigger, stronger powers. This book provides a clear account of the scale, pattern, and function of China's cities in the Qing Dynasty and the enormous role these cities played in China's social development to the present day.

Herdsman to Statesman: The Autobiography of Jamsrangiin Sambuu of Mongolia

This compelling autobiography encapsulates the profound changes that transformed the underdeveloped world in the twentieth century. Jamsrangiin Sambuu, born in 1895 to a herder family in a remote region of Mongolia, rose to become ambassador and eventually president of a haltingly industrialized and urbanized Communist country.

The Early Mongols Language, Culture and History

Igor de Rachewiltz was one of the world's preeminent historians and philologists specializing in the medieval history of the Mongols. This collection draws together his top colleagues who contribute seminal essays in the field  to celebrate his 80th birthday.

Poisoned Arrows: The Stalin-Choibalsan Mongolian Massacres, 1921-1941

Poisoned Arrows: The Stalin-Choibalsan Mongolian Massacres, 1921-1941 reveals to an English speaking readership for the first time the truth about the massacres conducted between 1921-1941 by the Stalinist KGB and its puppet Mongolian counterpart in converting the historic home of Genghis Khan into the world's second communist state and keeping it isolated from the world under Soviet domination for seventy years.

The Mongolic Languages

For general linguistic theory, the Mongolic languages offer interesting insights to problems of areal typology and structural change. An understanding of the Mongolic language family is also a prerequisite for the study of Mongolian and Central Eurasian history and culture. This volume is the first comprehensive treatment of the Mongolic languages in English, written by an international team of specialists.

Open Access Highlights

Asian Economic and Social Society (AESS) Journals

  • What's included? The Asian Economic and Social Society publishes a number of Open Access journals in the fields of business, finance, economics, social science, agriculture, scientific research, and English language and literature.
  • Why search here? AESS to aims to advance encourage research in the fields of scientific and social sciences and publishing high quality theoretical and empirical research papers.

Frontier Encounters

Bringing together anthropologists, sociologists and economists, this timely collection of essays offers new perspectives on an area that is currently of enormous economic, strategic and geo-political relevance.

Travel Writing in Mongolia and Northern China, 1860-2020

Travel Writing in Mongolia and Northern China, 1860-2020 invites readers to explore Mongolia as an important cultural space for Western travelers and their audiences over three historical eras.

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