Description: 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...
Review Quotes:
"The Mongols at China's Edge will interest readers interested in nationalism, autonomy, Tibet and Xinjiang (by analogy and contrast), China, twentieth-century history, and issues of representation." --Pacific Affairs
"Most valuable for the broad historical perspective it places on modern problems faced by one of China's most visible national minorities." --Choice Reviews "An essential read for anyone working on minorities in China, or for that matter in any region." --Central Eurasian Studies Review "Learned, thoughtful, and beautifully written." --Booknews "Bulag's passionate, historically-grounded exposition of the complexities of ethnic reconstruction make this book one of the best recent studies of China's ethnic minorities. Through his ethnic lens, he analyses not just Mongols, but the evolution of China's national identity. Anthropologists, historians and many other scholars should incorporate his powerful critique into their teaching and research." --Peter Perdue, Yale University, China Quarterly "This is an insightful detailed study of ethnic identity and nationalism in China. Combining analyses of a wide range of topics, ranging through poetry, sexuality, children's stories, and historiography, Uradyn Bulag takes the reader on a journey through the evolution of Mongolian identity in China and shows how such identities are woven into the fabric of Chinese national identity." --The China Journal "The book is a welcome addition to the relatively scarce body of literature that seeks to generate greater understanding of history and culture from the Mongols' point of view." --Nationalities Papers "[This book] is likely to remain a major source both on the Mongols of China and the tortuous process of their absorption into the Chinese nation and may well become a model for studies of other national minorities of China." --Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies "Old and thorny questions of ethnicity, nation, nationhood, nationality, national minority, national unity, ethinic or national identity, ways of imagery, national iconography and hagiography as weell as morals of ethnic policy receive in this book a vivid and fresh presentation in the mirror of changing luck of the Mongols of China's Inner Mongolia and Qinghai in the twentieth century." --Journal Of The Mongolia Society "Bulag offers a textured and sophisticated discussion of the Inner Mongol's efforts to affect their own degree of integration and distinction in the People's Republic of China. This book is a significant contribution not only to the field of Chinese Area Studies, but also to the more general literature of political anthropology and cultural geography." --Alexander C. Diener, University of Kansas "Old and thorny questions of ethnicity, nation, nationhood, nationality, national minority, national unity, ethnic or national identity, ways of imagery, national iconography and hagiography as well as morals of ethnic policy receive in theis book a vivid and fresh presentation in the mirror of the changing luck of the Mongols of China's Innter Mongolia and Qinghai in the twentieth century." --Mongolian Studies "This book is highly recommended for all who wish to gain an understanding of the complexities of Mongol identity in modern-day China and the achievements and compromisees of Ulanhu. More generally, the book should be of interest to scholars of Chinese minority nationality policy and indeed all those with an interest in multi-culturalism and nation building in ethnically complex societies." --Journal of Asian Studies