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5 pm, July 9th, 2007, National Univeristy of Mongolia, Building No. 5, Room 305
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) hosts a special Speaker Series lecture given by Michael Kohn on July 9th. Michael Kohn spent three years working at the Mongol Messenger in
the late 1990s, an experience told in his new book Dateline Mongolia.
Michael will discuss the book, recalling his experiences from that
period and explaining how the early years of Mongolia's democracy will
effect its domestic and foreign policy for generations to come. Michael
will be on hand to answer questions and sign copies of his book.
Michael Kohn has been a frequent visitor to Mongolia for the past 10
years. He has written about Mongolia for the Associated Press, the New
York Times, the BBC and the San Francisco Chronicle. Michael is the
author of the Lonely Planet guide to Mongolia, as well as the books,
"Lama of the Gobi" and "Dateline Mongolia." Michael has also written
guides to Tibet, India Central Asia and Israel.
The Mongolian Story
The land of camels, koumiss and Ghengis Khan is much than what National
Geographic would lead us to believe. The nomads of Mongolia still roam
the steppes, following their herds of cashmere goats and shaggy yaks,
but Mongolia is also a land of surprising contrasts, as Michael Kohn
describes in his new book, Dateline Mongolia: An American Journalist in Nomads Land.
Michael arrives in the capital Ulaanbaatar in the late 1990s to find a
dizzying mix of old school Soviet hang-ups and new school capitalist
ventures, where cell phone-toting teens parade in the latest Paris
fashions and politicians drive to work in Hum-Vees. Weaving in
traditional life and rush towards modernity, Dateline Mongolia is the stage for death-defying child jockeys, wayward KGB agents and the Buddhist God-King
trailed by an entourage of monks and press spokesmen.
As the editor of the state-run Mongol Messenger newspaper,
Michael witnesses Mongolia on the brink of its great leap from
Stalinism to democracy. During his three-year tenure at the paper he
interviews cattle rustlers and falcon smugglers, lunches with the prime
minister, stars in a movie, and treks into the mountains with the
feared ‘eagle hunters’.
Michael’s in-depth knowledge of the
country and language is our key to a better understanding of Asian
cultures and developing nations. Probing into the lives of the people
he meets, Michael provides an intimate and personal account of Mongolia
at a crucial point in its history.
Reviews
“Genghis Khan may have stormed across the
steppes seven centuries ago but Michael Kohn has probably covered
nearly as many miles around one of the world’s most remote and untamed
nations. That he’s managed to explore Mongolia from Ulaanbaatar to the
Gobi Desert and from frozen winters to baking summers on a salary of
just 40 dollars as editor of The Mongol Messenger makes his tale of
strange places and even stranger people all the more remarkable.” - Tony Wheeler, Founder, Lonely Planet
“Michael Kohn writes with the fast-paced timing of a reporter who sense
the global impact of minute issues; yet at the same time, he paints
vivid pictures of the Mongolian landscape and people with the skill of
a portrait painter. He offers a picture filled with information, where
even the most bizarre characters are treated with dignity without
avoiding the irony in their lives.” -Jack Weatherford,
author of Ghengis Khan and the Making the of the Modern World.
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