With its small population and low GDP, Mongolia is frequently deemed "unique" or tacked onto various area studies programs: Inner Asia, Central Asia, Northeast Asia, or Eurasia. This volume is a response to the concern that countries such as Mongolia are marginalized when academia and international diplomacy reconfigure area studies borders in the postsocialist era.

Would marginalized countries such as Mongolia benefit from a reconfiguration of area studies programs or even from another way of thinking about grouping nations? This book uses Mongolia as a case study to critique the area studies methodology and test the efficacy of another grouping methodology, the "-scapes" method proposed by Arjun Appadurai. Could the application of this approach for tracing individuals' social networks by theme (finance, ethnicity, ideology, media, and technology) be applied to nation-states or peoples? Could it then prevent Mongolia from slipping through the cracks of academia and international diplomacy? Experts from ecology, genetics, archaeology, history, anthropology, and international diplomacy contemplate these issues in their chapters on Mongolia through the ages. Their work includes over 30 maps to help situate Mongolia in its geologic, geographic, economic, and cultural matrix. By comparing maps of different time periods and intellectual orientations, readers can consider for themselves the place of Mongolia in the world community and the relative benefits of these and other grouping methodologies.

Content of this book's DVD-ROM may be found online at this location:http://core.tdar.org/project/376589.

Figures
Tables
Contributors
Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments: "-Scaping" Mongolia

Theorizing Mongolia's Connections
1. General Comments on Mapping Mongolia and Mongol Studies
G. Cameron Hurst
2. "-Scaping" Mongolia
Paula L.W. Sabloff
3. Mapping and the Headless State: Rethinking National Populist Concepts of Mongolia
David Sneath
4. Is There Such a Thing as Central/Inner (Eur)Asia and Is Mongolia a Part of It?
Christopher P. Atwood

Extending Beyond Current Borders
5. The Geology, Climate, and Ecology of Mongolia
Clyde E. Goulden, B. Nandintsetseg, and L. Ariuntsetseg
6. Nomadic Pastoralism in Mongolia and Beyond
Thomas Barfield
7. The Prehistory of Mongolian Populations as Revealed by Studies of Osteological, Dental, and Genetic Variation
Theodore Schurr and Lenore Pipes
8. Mapping Ritual Landscapes in Bronze Age Mongolia and Beyond: Unraveling the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur Enigma
William W. Fitzhugh and Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan

Connecting to Other Polities
9. Timescapes from the Past: An Archaeogeography of Mongolia
William Honeychurch and Chunag Amartuvshin
10. Steppe Nomads as a Philosophical Problem in Classical China
Paul R. Goldin
11. Mapping Foreign Policy Interests: Mongolia's Case
Jargalsaikhany Enkhsaikhan

Index