Lost Country - Mongolia Revealed by Jasper Becker
The author travels from Peking, across the center of Asia to Leningrad, encountering a host of characters who enable him to piece together Mongolia's turbulent history. He uncovers the unique cultural heritage of a country hidden from the West until only recently. Along the way he uncovers Japanese attempts during World War II to place a descendant of Genghis Khan at the head of a new Mongolian state, recounts the horrors of Stalin's rule when 20 percent of the population was liquidated and the monasteries were destroyed, discovers the real location of Shangri-La and visits the high mountains of the north where the last surviving shamans summon up the spirits of the dead.
