Contributors identified only by name examine aspects of the Central Asian pastoral people mostly before they aspired to conquest and empire. Among the topics are Mongol imperial ideology, dialectical traces in Beilu yiyu, a Mongol warlord in Manchuria during the Yuan/Ming transition, a comparative analysis of original texts on one verse composition in The Secret History of the Mongols, paradigms of the images of the Mongols in Medieval Russia, cauterization, new Buddhist Mongolica from Dunhuang, Wang Guowei's collation of the Secret History, and exchange marriage in the royal families of nomadic states. There is no index. Annotation 2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
