December, 2007
15 December, 2007 - Updated the Publications page to add my article on show trials that was just accepted by American Ethnologist. Expect it to be out in the spring/summer of 2008.
November, 200713 November, 2007 - Removed the link on the homepage for the guestbook. I thought I had done so ages ago, when I took down the guestbook because of too much spam. But in the past week or two I've received notes from people who tried to access it.
5 November, 2007 - Updated the Telling Memories page.
October, 200721 October, 2007 - Finally mostly settled in (the original) Cambridge, although the majority of books I shipped over are still in boxes. Two updates for today. The first is a few small corrections and additions to the publications page. The second is a new page, under the academics section, called Telling Memories, which is a reading group I'm starting at Cambridge. This will basically be a place to see what we've been reading. I will try to eventually add a few more things - other possible readings of interest, etc., but given other commitments, I wouldn't hold my breath....
May, 200713 May, 2007 - Updated the links page.
1 May, 2007 - Just cleaned up a photo in the people page, where I had the height and width backwards.
April, 200723 April, 2007 - Mostly housekeeping stuff - corrected some formatting and other mistakes on the publications page, as well as added a link to it from the home page, to make it easier to get to.
13 April, 2007 - For the first time in probably a year, if not longer (I don't really feel like checking) I've added a new bichig document to the site. This one is from 1931, and is about the benefits belonging to a cooperative can bring to women.
4 April, 2007 - Two updates. First - added a new link, to a site in Japan with old manuscript maps of Mongolia. That's about half-way down the Mongolia links section. Second, and much more important, check out the Patting Myself On the Back section for a fairly major announcement...
February, 20079 February, 2007 - It was pointed out to me yesterday that I had managed to misspell "livestock" on all the pages dealing with animals. That's been fixed now.
3 February, 2007 - Updated the publications section. Changed a forthcoming book chapter to reflect that it's now out and added a new forthcoming publication.
January, 200731 January, 2007 - Updated the links section. Added the link to Worldmapper, a cool and useful map site. Also cleaned up and updated a few other links. Once again apologies for the long time between updates. I spent winter break teaching an on-line course, so no break for me, and otherwise caught up with mostly administrative and teaching stuff. I haven't even had time to work on my latest article (still in progress) in about two months!
December, 20062 December, 2006 - An update to a too much neglected section - the politics section. I've been bad on keeping that up-to-date, but just read about a move by the MAHN group in the Ih Hural that I felt I had to comment on.
November, 200625 November, 2006 - Finally! New photos! There's a set of pictures of various livestock and a few other animals in the photos section. I do have other plans to put more photos up - a section on religion, and a more general "tourist sites" one, but honestly, no idea when I'll get around to them, given everything else waiting to be done.
4 November, 2006 - Suddenly realized this morning that I had never included Mongolia Web News, a very useful website, into my links section. It's finally there.
October, 200617 October, 2006 - Wow. An actual update, albeit it a minor one. Finally added a book to the anthro readings section, as I've been meaning to for ages. It's an easy read, not a serious academic work, but still one that offers good insights into what doing fieldwork can be like, and why we do it. One of these days, I'll actually get around to updating the photos. Really.
7 October, 2006 - Almost another month has gone by. I think I'll stop promising updates and just hope people will still check back for them from time to time. This one is actual about the Oral History of Twentieth Century Mongolia website. It has been updated to include a sample interview in both English and Mongolian. We hope to have more soon.
September, 200617 September, 2006 - As usual, intentions haven't been matching up to reality. At least the picture on the home page has finally been updated. It's not a great picture by any means, but at least now when people meet me at conference or in Mongolia, it won't confuse them, since the old picture had the beard. The new computer is up and running (yeah!) and I even know how I want to redo some photos. (A section on animals and wildlife is next). Now just to find the time.
August, 200617 August, 2006 - I have only recently returned from about three months in the UK and Mongolia. I have more photos, and some ideas for the anthropology section of the website. Among other things, I think I'll put up a section on animals / wildlife, since I have a few good pictures from this summer. But alas, the laptop continues to mis-behave badly. It took literally about five minutes to load up Dreamweaver just now. I don't even want to think what it would be like trying to do anything substantial. So most updates will probably have to wait until I get a new computer, which hopefully will be within a month. I will see about trying to get a few smaller updates on - maybe work on the anthropology section, which is mostly text - but really don't expect to be able to do much with this computer.
June, 200620 June, 2006 - A new link has been put up. This one is to The Oral History of Twentieth Century Mongolia. This is yet another project I'm involved in. The web-page doesn't have a whole lot right now, but it will grow as the project does.
17 June, 2006 - A rather small update. The CV and the conference page have been updated. I actually spent a bit of time this evening seeing about doing some sort of more major update - perhaps another PDF file (none really ready and/or worth sharing on the hard drive) or photos. But alas - the computer is such a pain that I refuse to spend as much time as it would take to get photos or some such up and posted and what-not. I'm afraid any real updates will be postponed until August or so - once I get back to the States and get a computer that behaves. Sorry! Do check back in a few days - there should be an announcement and new link for one of my current projects.
10 June, 2006 - A quick stop by to apologize for yet another non-update. I've been going full-blast on a grant application in the UK, and am heading off to Mongolia in less than two weeks. I'll be back in the US in late August, and hope to have something to post then (including photos). In addition to the time element, my computer appears to be on the way out. After maybe ten or fifteen minutes (if I'm lucky) of normal work, the fans will kick in, CPU usage shoots up to 100% or near it, and everything just crawls. Can't figure out what's going on - no detectable spyware, etc., processes look normal - just taking up lots of CPU time. So it's impossible to get any real work done at home these days. I know I still have e-mails to answer - I will try to get to them soon. Honest! So, again, many apologies for not being able to update more, but I am happy to see that people still are finding and using the site, even without continuously new attractions.
May, 20061 May, 2006 - Yet another non-update. This one is more of a notification. I'm in the depths of the end of the semester - which means grading papers, writing and then grading finals, working out final grades, etc. And all of the other stuff. (You know, research.) So this means that the website is going to be neglected a bit longer. I do have (really!) a few ideas for more photo sets. I just don't have the time and energy these days to sort through slides, resize, write captions, etc. But eventually, I want to do one set on religion / temples, and one on standard tourist attractions. I also wouldn't hold my breath over the summer. I'll be leaving on May 19th to England for a month (to work on a research grant application) and then to Mongolia for research for two months. If I have time, I'll work on updates, but can't promise anything. At least I should have more photos to not post when I return... In the meantime, if you are really bored, you can check out a blog I've started for my amusement. I can only think of one person I know who checks it besides me, but it it is called If language were liquid. It's more random musings on language and whatever else springs to mind at the time. I decided to put it on a blog site rather than here simply so I don't have to bother with the coding, updating pages, etc.
April, 200626 April, 2006 - One more small update. Two additions to the links page. Two blogs (one probably worth reading, the other not) added to the "More..." section.
21 April, 2006 - Another minor update. This time, it is to the Conference papers page. Added the various (three) conference / symposium papers from this spring to the list.
14 April, 2006 - A very small update. Just three additions to the Links page - one on Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar, specifically), one to a fountain pen site and one to a site on wine. My apologies for the quietness of the site over the last month or so. I actually spent over half of March away from home - giving papers, working on research projects, etc. With that, the time spent catching up from being away in terms of grading, etc., there's been little time to do much else. Things probably won't get much better until the fall -- a week or so after I give my last final exam, I'm back to England for a month, and from there, two months or so in Mongolia. And - if you are reading this and I haven't answered an e-mail: I'm working on it. This site has generated more interest in Mongolia than I ever expected when I started. I have a whole stack of neglected e-mails, but I'm trying to get to them.
February, 200618 February, 2006 - My most recent publication is now available here. An article in Ab Imperiod, it looks at the claim that it was forbidden to talk about Chinggis Khaan under socialism, and why people make the claims about this that they do. It's in the articles and book chapters section - "The case of the disappearing Chinggis Khaan."
9 February, 2006 - Some more updating on the politics page. I've put up the list of the new Ministers, and I've also put up an analysis of what happened and what it means written by the Center for Citizens' Alliance, a Mongolian NGO. I also realized that the information on the political parties is slightly out of date, but that will have to wait a bit longer. (As will the promised photos.) I'm just too swamped between teaching and various research commitments to have the time and energy to do the updating I'd like to.
2 February, 2006 - Two minor updates. Substituted the photo of the newspaper "ad" on political repression with a better quality scan of the original. And added a short entry to the brags list. Mongolia did actually finally appoint a new government. That will get posted in the next few days, when I have a bit more time. Plus, I finally realized what photos should be next, so hopefully they'll make it up sometime this month.
January, 200616 January, 2006 - Another quick update to the page on Mongolian politics. Having spent the weekend e-mailing with various people in Mongolia and reading on-line news, I've posted a bit more commentary on the situation. When the new government is formed, that will be updated as well.
13 January, 2006 - A rather hurried update to the page on Mongolian politics. The coalition government has, according to news reports, just been forced out of power, with the evident aim of MAHN taking full control, rather than sharing power with other parties, as it currently does.
8 January, 2006 - Another book in bichig has been uploaded. This one is from 1941, and is on the Halh Mongols during the Manchu period. It's from the same "series" (for lack of a better word) that the books on the Mongol Empire and Autonomous Mongolia are from.
December, 200530 December, 2005 - Wow - a whole month (when I've been in the US) with no updates. And none for today. Just couldn't let a month go by without adding something. I still have some photos to put up, but I just need to find the time. While the semester is finally over, I'm trying to get some of my own research done over the break. I should also update the photo on the homepage. After more than 20 years, the beard is gone. So I should really post a photo of me without it. But alas - there are none. Well, nothing presentable, at any rate. One or two quick and messy shots to e-mail to friends, and they aren't going up here.
November, 200526 November, 2005 - A slightly larger update. I've added another bichig document to the collection. This one is an article from Ünen in the fall of 1937, covering a show trial against lamas. One of the accused was the abbot of Manzshir Hiid, just outside of Ulaanbaatar.
24 November, 2005 - A small update - just added some new links, including one to the on-line listings of a bookstore in Mongolia. I do have some more photos in mind - suddenly realized there was a whole section that never made it up - but I'm not sure when I'll find the time.
10 November, 2005 - A whole month before updating. That just gives you an idea of what life is like these days. (Or perhaps it was the birthday cake I tried to stuff into the laptop, to help it celebrate the site's first birthday...) And not much to add to this update. I've updated some parts of the More... section, and tweaked the publications page a bit, since I now know where the two publications listed as forthcoming are actually going to appear. I think. I should have some more links to put up once I get them sorted and figured out. And I've got a pile of documents I mean to scan, and if they get done, they'll eventually get uploaded as well. But at this point, I wouldn't hold my breath.
October, 20058 October, 2005 - A new bichig document has been uploaded. This one's kind of big - 17 Mb - but also should be interesting. It's a statement of Party policy towards small ethnic groups (I suppose you could call them "ethnic minorities") from 1931. I actually haven't had the chance to go through it myself yet, so I'm not sure it is actually as interesting as it sounds, but hopefully it is. (In a side note, the site has now been up and running for a year! It currently averages about 60 visitors a day, for those of you who are interested.)
September, 200525 September, 2005 - Another small update. I updated the version of my CV on the site, and added the abstract for an upcoming conference paper to the research section.
16 September, 2005 - A relatively small update. Added Morris Rossabi's book, Modern Mongolia, to the Recommended readings section.
10 September, 2005 - This semester is turning out to be rather busier than I expected (although in a good way). Among other things, I'm now teaching twice as many courses as I expected to be teaching a month ago. So, unfortunately, updating this web-page every 7 to 10 days isn't really going to be realistic. I'm hoping to still be able to find time to update once or twice a month, and maybe after October things will get a bit better. As always, if you have suggestions for things you'd like to see on the site, feel free to contact me me.
August, 200527 August, 2005 - Added two more anthropology links to the appropriate page.
21 August, 2005 - Photos. Finally got around to putting up some photos from the relatively short (one month) trip I took this summer. Also added a new link, to the homepage of the national park (Hustai Nuruu) in Mongolia that is home to the wild horses.
15 August, 2005 - A small update - a correction. In preparation for scanning in something else, I checked with someone and realized I had been somehow misreading uneleh as unemleh. Not sure what I was thinking. Anyway, changed the bichig documents page to reflect the correction.
14 August, 2005 - Finally, a larger update. There's a new book in Mongol bichig available. This one is called "Autonomous Mongolia," and is a history of Mongolia from 1911 - 1918. Published in 1941, it's seems to be from the same series as the book on Chinggis Khaan and the Mongol Empire available on this site.
7 August, 2005 - A very small update. Just added some stuff to make the navigation section of the Anthropology section to make it a bit easier to move from section to section. (I'm planning on sending some of my students to read it next month.) Sorry for neglecting the site. I do have some pictures, and more documents to put up. Just a bit too busy trying to design a new course (on-line!), think about research, etc., etc. to have much time or energy left to work on the site. But it's still on my mind, and it will get done as soon as I feel guilty enough.
July, 200527 July, 2005 - Just back (less than 12 hours ago) to NJ after the almost five-week trip to Mongolia and the UK. So obviously there's been no real updates, although I do now have more photos, more documents to scan in and what not. But I wanted to note here that the guestbook has been taken down, at least for the time being - I was getting too annoyed with having to clean out all the links to porn sites and other spurious stuff that I figured it was just easier to take it down, at least for now. If I can figure out a relatively secure way to set it up again, it will reappear. Anyway, I hope to have some additions to the site soon, although it might have to wait a few more days.
June, 200520 June, 2005 - Finally, another update, and this one quite small. Two things - fixed a few glaring errors I just caught on the politics page. Unfortunately, I think there might be another change that needs to be made, but I haven't had time lately. Also, added a new book to the Recommended Readings for Mongolia. This will be the last update until the end of July. I'm leaving in two days for Mongolia and England, so I won't have time to work on this, although I'll look in from time to time. I hope to find time in August to update some more things. I had some plans I had hoped to get done before I left, but it just never quite worked out that way.
4 June, 2005 - Worked on the non-Mongolia stuff a bit today. So there are two updated sections today. One is the Readings section of the anthropology section. I've added a book that is a nice little general introduction to the field to it. And speaking (or writing) of books, there's a new page under the More... section. Called Books on cooking, it gives some books on cooking (duh!) that I find useful and interesting. I have another few updates planned in the near future, once I manage to track down some information, so check back soon!
May, 200529 May, 2005 - Added an brief addendum to the comments on the recent Presidential election in Mongolia on the politics page.
23 May, 2005 - Updated the politics section with a few words about the recent President election in Mongolia.
22 May, 2005 - A "real" update, for the first time in about three weeks. (Sorry about that.) This is yet another document, but hopefully the size makes up for the delay. It's a "handbook" from 1944 for local level (sum and bag) administrators. As expected, it can be found in the books section of the documents area.
20 May, 2005 - After another period of relative neglect, I've made a few minor changes to some text here and there. I'm going to tyr to get some more stuff scanned and uploaded over the weekend, and get a bit more work done before heading to Mongolia and England for about five weeks this summer.
10 May, 2005 - A non-update, really. Since this is probably just about the longest the web-site has gone without an update, I figured I'd put up a note saying you'll probably have to wait a bit longer, I'm afraid. It is the end of the semester, so I'm mired pretty deeply in grading and that sort of stuff. Once that it done (in a week or so) I hope to put aside some time to work on the site a bit more.
1 May, 2005 - Finally got around to adding another document. This one is an excerpt from a series intended for the political education of Party Members from 1938. It can be found in the books section of the documents area. (I do have plans to eventually scan in some more stuff, but have actually been trying to get some other projects finished and out the door.)
April, 200523 April, 2005 - Added a new sub-section to the More section. This is just some shameless self-promotion, since I figure if I don't do it, no one else will. Currently just talks about photos of mine appearing in various places.
16 April, 2005 - Another relatively small update. This one is just some comments on the Bradt travel guide in the Other readings section.
9 April, 2005 - Two new Mongolia related links. One is on language, the other a collection of photos, but out of the ordinary.
7 April, 2005 - Some thoughts on John Man's new book, Genghis Khan have been added to the recommended readings. (Well, new in the US. It came out about a year or so ago in the UK.)
5 April, 2005 - An update on politics. There've been some protests in Mongolia, and the Presidential elections are coming up. Now if I can just be better about reading the newspapers on-line...
March, 200530 March, 2005 - A small update. Added a new link, to a site on Mongolian history. Well, twentieth century political history to be more precise.
24 March, 2005 - Just finished watching The story of the weeping camel on DVD, and added comments on it to the recommended readings page. A wonderful film.
21 March, 2005 - I've added another section to the Mongolia area. It's called Other readings. It's exactly that - a new section with mini-reviews on stuff I've read on Mongolia (mostly popular) that don't rate inclusion into the recommended readings.
15 March, 2005 - A journal, this time. I've uploaded an issue from 1926 of the journal of the Revolutionary Youth League. It is available - broken into two sections in the bichig books section.
13 March, 2005 - Photos. This time they are of people I've known and worked with over the years. As usual, with most of the photos there is text giving more information on the people and or the setting and other relevant information.
5 March, 2005 - One more document in bichig joints the site. This one is from 1933, and is concerned with the "work certificate" in the literal, but not very satisfying translation. (There's a more standard term in English, but I'm blanking on it now. I'll change it when I remember it.)
February, 200528 February, 2005 - Something kind of quick. Added a new section, but only one document to it. Eventually there will be more, but for now, there's a grand total of one new document in Cyrillic Mongolian. It's a newspaper article from Ünen in 1962. I scanned it in for my own work, and figured I might as well put it up here. Sorry for the citation as a header in the headline - not the neatest, but I forgot to put the refence in as a different page before I converted to PDF and didn't feel like doing it again right now. I'll try to make something a bit more aesthetically pleasing sooner or later. (Probably later.)
23 February, 2005 - A very quick update. Just rewrote and expanded the section on contingency and chance in the future research section. Was just thinking about the ideas a bit more while taking a break from grading exams and decided I should try to clarify it here a bit more.
21 February, 2005 - A note rather than an update - I have some ideas and areas that I want to work on for the site, but for the next week or two I need to concentrate on getting an article finished. In the mean time, take a look at what my desk looks like when I'm working. And this, believe it or not, counts as "recently straightened up." I hope to have substantial updates not too long after this piece is done, which should be in about two weeks. (Look for a discussion of culture - what we anthros study - and more photos.)
14 February, 2005 - Just fixed a broken link that was brought to my attention. Hoping to get more photos up soon, but I've been (gasp) teaching and trying to finish another article that should have been done about two months ago...
10 February, 2005 - Added a journal article from "Party Life" in 1938 to the bichig books page. This one is on the 17th anniversary of the Party. It's a photocopy from the Mongolian national archives. To be honest, I can't quite remember why I even have it. I guess I'll have to go read it and see if I can figure out why.
4 February, 2005 - Corrected a typo that was keeping a bichig document from loading. Normally I wouldn't list such a minor correction here, but there were multiple attempts to download the file in the last day or two. So if anyone trying to download the geree document reads this - you can now.
3 February, 2005 - A more minor update for today. I've added the official Library of Congress transcription tables to the page on transcribing Mongolian.
1 February, 2005 - A fairly big update. Added a whole bunch of pages of text in the Mongolia section. It's all on Mongolian history. It's actually a chapter from my Ph.D. dissertation that recounts Mongolian history. It's pretty much just stuck up there as is, so expect a few oddities like references to other chapters. Still, it's a decent overview of Mongolian history over the centuries.
January, 200527 January, 2005 - I updated the Mongolian politics page. I briefly updated the situation - as far as I've been following it - in the Ih Hural (Parliament). I really need to be better at reading the Mongolian-language papers when I'm in the US, to keep on top of this all.
25 January, 2005 - Yet another bichig document update. Probably kind of boring for the non-bichig readers out there. This one is a very short document from 1925 on registration fees for ox, camel and horse carts. I kid you not. Actually, I believe it is the last document that I already have in PDF version that hasn't made it to the site yet, so the new files may take a bit longer to appear from now on. Still, I count 13 bichig documents on-line here, so that should be enough to keep most people happy for the time being. Also updated the links page. Added two, took one off. Probably have more to add when I sit down and look at my bookmarks.
17 January, 2005 - A follow-on update to yesterday. A new bichig document. This one is from the 1920s, on witnessing contracts. I had hoped to make it available yesterday, but had to wait for a clarification - I kept mis-reading one word, and had to have a friend explain my mistake.
16 January, 2005 - Reworked the section on the bichig documents. Broke up the listing into two separate pages, one for documents and one for books and such. Also added a new document to the book page, this one on the Mongol Empire. Finally, also corrected some typos in the pictures of the Gobi. Whoops.
14 January, 2005 - Added a new page to the Mongolia section. This has some blockprints of Naadam from the 1930s that I came across in my files. Tweaked a bit more text here and there as well. In other news, I think I'm going to have to re-arrange some of the sections soon. The various options on the Mongolia section, for example, don't all fit on my screen anymore, and I'm running at 1200x1600! So others must have tons of scrolling to do, and that probably doesn't make them too happy. But then again, don't want the structure to get too convoluted. Hmm....
12 January, 2005 - Various minor stuff, mostly some slight textual changes here and there. If you go to the background page, there's now a link so you can see the article that started it all.
8 January, 2005 - More photos! This time it is a photo essay of Ulaanbaatar and some of the changes I've seen there over the years.
5 January, 2005 - Two brief summaries of politics-related news were added to the page on Mongolian politics. One is a brief update on the Democratic Coalition, and the other on a proposed law that was withdrawn.
4 January, 2005 - I dug up an old paper this morning to double-check something from (gasp!) ten years ago, when I was still a grad student. I decided the paper itself was better than I remembered, so you can now find it as a download on the conference papers page. This one is from the Princeton conference that led to the book Mongolia in the Twentieth Century: Landlocked Cosmopolitan. My paper wasn't included in the book because the editors didn't feel it fit the direction they wanted to take the book in, or some such. Ah, well. Their loss.
2 January, 2005 - Another Mongol bichig document has made its appearance. This one is actually a book, from 1928. It's a history of Mongolia from early times, stopping before the twentieth century. (Actually, I haven't read the whole thing, but it actually appears to stop earlier - about the 17th or 18th century.)
December, 200430 December, 2004 - Sat down this morning and wrote a piece on doing fieldwork for the anthropology section. I'm sure I've missed issues that I should have mentioned, but it is a section I've been meaning to write for some time now, to go with the pieces on data analysis and writing. I've also added a short piece on what exactly Mongol bichig is, since it turns out this is a popular search phrase for this site. It's been a busy day for the site. I've also uploaded two more of my old conference papers. They show a range of my interests and work that hasn't been published yet, although they are all topics I want to expand on. (One is in fact hopefully going to appear as a monograph in Mongolia in the next year.)
22 December, 2004 - In my never-ending attempt to avoid more productinve work, I added a version of one of my conference papers for download, to show some of my more recent thinking that hasn't been published yet. I also added one or two more items to the list of conference and seminar presentations.
19 December, 2004 - Something different for today. An short excerpt from a nineteenth century book describing in a few paragraphs the Halh and Buriats. It also has with it an old etching of some gers. Check it out through the Mongolia section, or just click here.
17 December, 2004 - Another Mongol bichig document is now on the site. This one is on hunting regulations, from 1930.
12 December, 2004 Finally got around to completing the list of ethnic groups, and adding a map showing their approximate locations.
8 December, 2004 Actually added something to the More... section of the site, believe it or not. Not strictly anthropology, and not strictly Mongolia.
6 December, 2004 Not really an update per se. But if you are running IE 5.5 (or possibly earlier) there is a gap between the top of text and pictures. Thanks to a colleague of mine who pointed out something I should have noted, I now know the general area of the problem. (Still not sure how to fix it.) If, however, you upgrade to IE 6.0, or better - FireFox - the problem goes away. (I did fix a typo, and added some text to the ethnic groups page, which had been written, but then not put up. Whoops.)
3 December, 2004 Added a new set of photos. This one is on the ger, the traditional Mongolian "tent."
November, 200430 November, 2004 - Fixed the guestbook. Apparently I broke it when deleting a bunch of garbage that someone entered. Whoops. And apparently people had actually tried to sign it between then and now. Ah, well.
28 November, 2004 - One more Mongol bichig document is now on-line. This is Shumyatski's account of the origins of the Mongolian revolution. I know of scholars who have heard of, but have never actually seen a copy of this one, so I hope it will be of interest. (And, in case you were wondering - Many of these bichig documents have already been converted to PDF. That makes them a relatively quick update (apart from the upload!) when I decide to add them. That's why the bichig document section grows slowly but more steadily than other parts of the site.)
24 November, 2004 - Various odds and ends. A new link has been put up. Also tried to fix an error that caused a formatting error in some versions of IE. (Won't be able to test that one until I get back to a computer with an old version of IE.) Put up a list of the major ethnic groups in Mongolia and their populations. Added some highlighting to make it a bit easier to find information in the background page of the Mongolia section.
22 November, 2004 - Worked a bit more on the anthropology section. Added another essay - although 'musing' is probably more accurate. This one is on writing and explanation. Sort of. I also started a bibliography for the anthro section, which so far just deals with stuff I've mentioned in that section. I hope in time to make it more general, but that would take more thinking than I want to do now...
19 November, 2004 - Yet another Mongol bichig document is now on-line. This one is a 1925 document on promissory notes.
13 November, 2004 - Started working on a section on anthropology in general. In time it should include information on how anthropologists do research, how we figure out what it all means, how and why we write stuff up, and so forth. It's part of the academics section, but the first link will take you directly there.
12 November, 2004 - Two more Mongol bichig documents are now available for downloading. One is a copy of the journal called "Science" from 1944. It has an article (I haven't read it yet!) on the Soyombo, the national symbol of Mongolia, as well as others. There's also a 1927 document on taxes.
8 November, 2004 - Big news!! Chapter One of Truth, history and politics in Mongolia is now available here. It, and "30,000 Bullets" can be found on the publications page. I'm particularly happy that I can offer Chapter One of the book here. This leaves only one substantive publication not on-line, and hopefully that one will appear one of these days.
7 November, 2004 - More photos!! This is an eclictic mix of photos that I'm calling "Eccentricities".
6 November, 2004 - Played around a bit with the section on my future research plans. Something reminded me of yet another project I want to do, so I added that to the list.
4 November, 2004 - My first "real" publication - "Collective memory and Chingunjav's Rebellion" - is now available on the publications page.
3 November, 2004 - Added some stuff to the links page, as well as the list of Mongol bichig documents. (Sorry, no new downloads there yet.) But I am glad to announce a new PDF version of one of my publications is now available. I'm particularly pleased this one is now on-line, as I think it's a useful little summary of nationalism in Mongolia, but unfortunately came out in a rather obscure publication in Taiwan in 2001.
1 November, 2004 - Another Mongol bichig document is now available for downloading. It's large - about 11Mb, and is on the 10th anniversity of the people's revolution. Also decided to keep just the stuff from the current and previous month on this page. To see earlier updates, check the "What's new" archive link.
October, 200429 October, 2004 - Added a page on Mongolian political parties.
28 October, 2004 - Updated the politics page with what little information I've been able to dig up on the local elections.
26 October, 2004 - Another Mongol bichig document is now available for downloading. This one is on rules for state pawnshops, from 1924.
23 October, 2004 - Several more syllabi have been added to the teaching page. Some text has been added or rewritten to various parts of the site as well.
21 October, 2004 - Added a PDF version of another article ('Blame, guilt and avoidance' - on the legacy of political repression) to the publications page. Also added a section of Recommended readings to the Mongolia section.
20 October, 2004 - Two Mongol bichig documents are now available for download as PDF files. One is a late 1930s biography of Choibalsan, and the other one is on regulations for local cooperatives from the late 1920s. Started providing links to the updates, to make life easier.
18 October, 2004 - Added "On Chinggis Khaan," an old piece of mine from 1998 that can be found on other sites around the web, so why not here? Rewrote the background section as well. Added a rough section with some basic statistical data and such. (It still needs more work, but it's a start.)
13 October, 2004 - Added a PDF version of one of my publications ('Creating national identity in socialist Mongolia') to the publications page. I hope to add more over time, but trying to get the permissions from the publishers can be a pain.
3 October, 2004 - Added a guestbook, and rewrote the text of some pages.
2 October, 2004 - Re-arranged the 'research' section, and added a new set of photos. These deal with the issue of political repression, and include some background as well.
1 October, 2004 - Worked on the 'teaching' page, and posted some course syllabi that can be found there. Also added a section on transcribing Mongolian in the Mongolia section. From that same page, you can also now download the official Mongolian government transcription system.
September, 200430 September, 2004 - As of now, the whole site is new. Kind of simple, no? If you saw the test site, there has been some minor formatting changes since then, as well as the addition of this page. I've also updated the Mongolian politics page with the list of the newly appointed Cabinet. The contact link also works now. Text will be revised / updated / added during the next few weeks.