The Land and People of Mongolia

This book is about the land and people of Mongolia. It is a well-written and fruitful book. This book explains the past and the present and the impressions that other countries experience with them. The book also explains native life, politics, culture and art. For example, the book explains the yasa or the law of Genghis Khan. No one knows exactly what the yasa was. They know from manuscripts and documents of China that it existed. The book told me also that yurts are made from felt and not from animal skins. The proper word for yurt is ger. The word yurt is actually Turkish. The Turks were in trade routes with Mongolia. A high ranking official in the Turkish government was actually ethnically Mongolian, but he was culturally Turkish. As in the illustration in the book you can see the Turkish clothes and scimitar. This schows that Genghis Khan spread his empire so far, from Japan to eastern Eurpoe, two places that did not know each other. But this was only for a brief time. Then Mongolia split into tribes and became isolated. The empire collapsed and the imperial life was now gone but some of the historical buildings still remain. Some are in cities and some are in the countryside. These were large forts and monumental buildings built of stome, with the insides heavily adorned wtih painted stucco. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in other countries or is bored with their life. This book is at an intermediate level for fourth graders. By: ES