Precious Steppe: Mongolian Nomadic Pastoralists in Pursuit of the Market

by Ole Bruun

Ole Bruun focuses on a community of nomadic livestock herders in present-day Mongolia. He depicts their transition from a contained, Soviet-era collective to modern times and addresses the most essential conditions for their continued survival and prosperity in the age of the market: the adaptability of their own culture and working strategies, government policy, and international attention. By studying the nomadic practice of animal husbandry in the context of family farms, Bruun points out the similarity to the peasant economy defined by the Russian agricultural economist Alexander Chayanov nearly a century ago. In both economies, the labor-consumer balance and life-cycle variations commonly set the term for economic strategies, yet the pastoral economy involves a highly specialized form of agriculture in which the scale of exchange determines wealth and lifestyle. In a vast territory such as Mongolia, infrastructure, social benefits, and other means of state support are crucial to prevent herders from sliding into a subsistence orientation, eventually leading to poverty.

262 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Mary Soon Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book describes a community of nomadic herders in Mongolia that the author studied. The book focuses on present-day herders and fairly recent history. Yet I read it to gain insights into the lives of nomadic horse herders in the era of the Mongol Empire. This is not what the author had set out to cover, so my evaluation is skewed. The book does contain background information on nomadic herding that I found valuable. Unsurprisingly, it also contains a lot of information that was irrelevant to my needs, such as Soviet influences on the herders during the Communist era, or what happens when present-day Mongolian herders migrate to the capital city. Some of this extra information interested me, some did not. Sometimes I found myself reading a sentence over and over before I managed to absorb it. I found the book useful more than enjoyable, but I imagine its intended audience would find it both useful and enjoyable.