https://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/rangeland%20degradation.pdf

Rangeland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau: A review of the evidence of its magnitude and causes

Modern genetic data combined with appropriate statistical methods have the potential to contribute substantially to our understanding of human history. We have developed an approach that exploits the genomic structure of admixed populations to date and characterize historical mixture events at fine scales. We used this to produce an atlas of worldwide human admixture history, constructed by using genetic data alone and encompassing over 100 events occurring over the past 4000 years. We identified events whose dates and participants suggest they describe genetic impacts of the Mongol empire, Arab slave trade, Bantu expansion, first millennium CE migrations in Eastern Europe, and European colonialism, as well as unrecorded events, revealing admixture to be an almost universal force shaping human populations.

/pdf/a-genetic-atlas-of-human-admixture-history-1cg4eqwl68.pdf

A genetic atlas of human admixture history.

Emily T. Yeh. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013. xvii and 324 pp., maps, photos, notes, bibliography, index. $26.95 paper (ISBN 978-0-8014-7832-1), $75.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0-8014-5155-3).So...

Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development

Chiozza and Goemans seek to explain why and when political leaders decide to initiate international crises and wars. They argue that the fate of leaders and the way leadership changes, shapes leaders' decisions to initiate international conflict. Leaders who anticipate regular removal from office, through elections for example, have little to gain and much to lose from international conflict, whereas leaders who anticipate a forcible removal from office, such as through coup or revolution, have little to lose and much to gain from conflict. This theory is tested against an extensive analysis of more than 80 years of international conflict and with an intensive historical examination of Central American leaders from 1848 to 1918. Leaders and International Conflict highlights the political nature of the choice between war and peace and will appeal to all scholars of international relations and comparative politics.

Leaders and International Conflict

Climate variability has been evident on the Mongolian plateau in recent decades. Livelihood adaptation to climate variability is important for local sustainable development. This paper applies an analytical framework focused on adaptation, institutions, and livelihoods to study climate adaptation in the Mongolian grasslands. A household survey was designed and implemented in each of three broad vegetation types in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. The analytical results show that livelihood adaptation strategies of herders vary greatly across the border between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China. Local institutions played important roles in shaping and facilitating livelihood adaptation strategies of herders. Mobility and communal pooling were the two key categories of adaptation strategies in Mongolia, and they were shaped and facilitated by local communal institutions. Storage, livelihood diversification, and market exchange were the three key categories of adaptation strategies in Inner Mongolia, and they were mainly shaped and facilitated by local government and market institutions. Local institutions enhanced but also at times undermined adaptive capacity of herder communities in the two countries, but in different ways. Sedentary grazing has increased livelihood vulnerability of herders to climate variability and change. With grazing sedentarization, the purchase and storage of forage has become an important strategy of herders to adapt to the highly variable climate. The multilevel statistical models of forage purchasing behaviors show that the strategies of livestock management, household financial capital, environmental (i.e., precipitation and vegetation growth) variability, and the status of pasture degradation were the major determinants of this adaptation strategy.

Climate adaptation, local institutions, and rural livelihoods: A comparative study of herder communities in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/ahr.111.2.445a

Peter C. Perdue.China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia.:China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia.

From Genghis Khan to the arid wastes of the Gobi desert, from the Soviet Union's most Stalinist satellite to the first Asian communist country to embrace democracy, Mongolia has always been an area of mystery and dread to westerners. Studied in school as part of the core curriculum, the Mongol Empire once stretched across Asia from the Pacific Ocean to Kiev and Baghdad. In modern times, interest in Mongolia has been suddenly sparked by the opening up of the country after 70 years of isolation in the Communist block. This first comprehensive A-to-Z encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongols provides up-to-date, accurate, and readable entries on all aspects of this people's turbulent history and rich culture, from prehistory to modern times. While particular emphasis is placed on the Mongol Empire, entries cover the country's entire history and range from geography to culture and religion to personalities, battles, daily life, and folklore. This volume is a great first-stop for research on Mongolia as well as a valuable reference for those wishing to expand their knowledge of a region that is, to most westerners, exotic and relatively unknown.

Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire

Beyond Great Walls: Environment, Identity, and Development on the Chinese Grasslands of Inner Mongolia

The link between the Chinese realm and the Inner Asian realm constitutes one of the most important points in understanding the nature of the Qing imperium. Past studies have highlighted how the institutions of rule in Mongolia, Tibet, and elsewhere in Inner Asia differed dramatically from those in the eighteen provinces of China. Ning Chia, for example, in her study of the Lifan Yuan or Court of Colonial Affairs, reiterated how that organization was the focus of government institutions that were unique in Chinese governmental history. She writes, “The Li-fan Yuan could not possibly exist if the sinocentric ‘exclusivist’ attitude had continued to dominate imperial policy . . . The Li-fan Yuan was thus a specifically Manchu creation, and a Manchu contribution to the historical development of the Chinese imperial system” (Chia 1992: 103–104). Institutional differences, particularly when those institutions are embedded in a thick cultural context, may also be expected to have correlates in the more affective elements of rule. Particularly in a system that is so profoundly centered on the person of the emperor, institutional differences would presumably also involve difference in the presentation of the person of the emperor to different publics among the different peoples of the empire. Here, too, previous research has strongly emphasized how the Qing emperors adopted dramatically different personas in order to appeal to each realm in the multinational Qing empire. Building on such materials, David Farquhar’s classic study of the Mañjus rı -

'Worshiping Grace': The Language of Loyalty in Qing Mongolia

/pdf/some-early-inner-asian-terms-related-to-the-imperial-family-3luqdtfd8d.pdf

Christopher P. Atwood

Papers

Peter C. Perdue.China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia.:China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia.

Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire

Beyond Great Walls: Environment, Identity, and Development on the Chinese Grasslands of Inner Mongolia

'Worshiping Grace': The Language of Loyalty in Qing Mongolia

Some Early Inner Asian Terms Related to the Imperial Family and the Comitatus