The Herder’s Boots

The Herder’s Boots – Traveling and Working with Nomads for the Future of Mongolia

UNAVAILABLE

Author: Stephen Parliament
Publisher: Klaava 
Published: January 2015
ISBN:
978-952-7074-23-7 (Amazon Kindle)
978-952-7074-25-1 (Apple iBooks)
978-952-7074-24-4 (EPUB)

The Herder’s Boots explores Mongolia, the strength and uniqueness of this land of 1.6 million people and their 40 million animals. The first part of the book observes the values and customs of Mongolia that will shape its future. The author traveled from Ulaanbaatar to the Gobi Desert and to other parts of the vast country encountering herder settlements, getting to know herders and their nomad life.

In the second part of the book, author’s friends and colleagues in Mongolia give their insight on what needs to be done for retaining their way of life. Though from differing perspectives, they have a common belief that Mongolians have their own approach to the question of survival and a camel-like attitude of determination.

In winter, it can be so penetrating cold that the air freezes the inside of your nostrils, and turns truck oil into the consistency of tar. The people live with and for the animals: the small goats for their lush, exquisite and soft fiber; sheep, for wool and hides; the rare two-humped Bactrian camels for another variety of exquisite fiber and rich milk; and horses, for which Mongolians are famous as agile equestrians. New technologies and businesses are expected to expand the economy, but the core of the country will always be based on the life cycle of land, animals and humans.

In addition to a career in developing and managing cooperative enterprises and non-profit community development corporations, Stephen Parliament has taught politics, educational psychology, and teaching and research methods.

Contents

Preface: The New Millennium
A Note on Terms
I: The Cashmere Trail
Chapter 1 Where the Cashmere Trail Begins
Chapter 2 The Herder Chuulunbaatar
Chapter 3 The Smell of Hot Brick Tea
Chapter 4 Chuulunbaatar’s Wife
Chapter 5 Morning on the Gobi Desert
Chapter 6 An Unobstructed View
Chapter 7 A Bowl of Soup
Chapter 8 The Late Mr. Stephen Vance, Chief of Party
Chapter 9 International Politics
Chapter 10 In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Chapter 11 The Pub in the British Embassy
Chapter 12 The Herder Tömör
Chapter 13 A Quiet Woman
Chapter 14 The Culling
Chapter 15 Snow Hawks and Survival
Chapter 16 Cooperation among the Herders
Chapter 17 Fine Fiber Processors in Ulaanbaatar
Chapter 18 Sticker Shock for the Herders
Chapter 19 Anton’s Bistro
Chapter 20 Emerging Markets: Price and Exchange in the Gobi Desert
II: The Future Built on the Past
Chapter 21 Water
Chapter 22 Mining
Chapter 23 Political Stability
Chapter 24 Renewed Attention to the Herders
Chapter 25 Organic connection among herders and the herd
Chapter 26 The stones cannot be moved
Chapter 27 Folktale Revisionism
Chapter 28 Social change and a non-Western idea of freedom
Chapter 29 The Tools of Economic Independence: Language and Technology
Chapter 30 The Idea of Freedom through Cooperation
Epilogue
Dramatis Persona
Annotated Bibliography
Notes