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Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists, by Morris Rossabi. A Philip E. Lilienthal Book in Asian Studies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. 418 pp. US$60 (Hardcover). ISBN 0-520-24399-4
Morris Rossabi graphically describes the difficult experiences of the Mongolian people in the period following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He also delivers a devastating indictment of the arrogance of global financial institutions who applied dogmatically neo-liberal doctrines to a country of which they knew little. In his view, because Mongolians were so heavily dependent on foreign aid, they lost their ability to decide for themselves the proper social and economic policies for the transition from a socialist to a capitalist economy. Foreign nostrums failed, for the most part, because they did not suit Mongolia's particular characteristics. Mongolia has become more democratic, but it suffers from corruption, poverty, high inequality, and heavy dependence on foreign investment, especially from China. This thorough, balanced, authoritative account draws a vivid picture of wrenching social change, political turmoil, and tragic mistakes.
No one is better qualified to write this book than Morris Rossabi. Having studied pre-modern Mongolia for decades, as the author of the gripping biography of Kublai Khan, he knows Mongolia's history and culture better than almost anyone, and he writes in an accessible, elegant style. He interviewed over one hundred people, made many trips to the country, and scoured available publications in Mongolian and English. He writes with great authority. Looking at Mongolia both as a fascinating post-Communist country in its own right and as a test case of the Washington Consensus, he makes his...