Across Mongolian Plains

Andrews, Roy Chapman, 1884-1960Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
430K words
Chapters
43

Tags

English Originals Science EnlightenmentNature ObservationTravel GuideExotic CultureFolk Customs

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Across Mongolian Plains by Roy Chapman AndrewsAuthor: Andrews, Roy Chapman, 1884-1960,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Jun 3, 2009

Editor's review

This is a travelogue of the Mongolian Plateau from the early twentieth century, in which the author records his observations of grasslands, deserts, and wildlife through a naturalist's eye. The book captures both the hardships and wonders of the journey while preserving a wealth of firsthand observations of the geography, customs, and ecology of the period, written in plain yet vivid prose. For readers who enjoy adventure narratives, frontier history and geography, and nature observation, it offers a window onto the grasslands of a bygone era. It is best read as a hybrid of historical source and travel writing: attend to the landscape, but also to the recorder's own historical limitations. The electronic edition makes it easy to search place names and the names of plants and animals, and is well suited as material for further reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and preface first to understand the route, then skip-read by geographical section
  2. Mark place names and species names as you go, reading alongside a map or encyclopedia
  3. Compare the book's observations with today's ecological conditions and keep brief reading notes

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a factual travelogue? It is a factual travel record, written from the author's own fieldwork on the Mongolian Plateau and covering geography, customs, and wildlife observation; it is not a work of fiction.
How difficult is the English, and what level is it suitable for? The language is generally plain, though it includes place names, species names, and period vocabulary; readers with a college-level English foundation who are willing to look up words will find it relatively easy to get into.
What are the practical advantages of the electronic edition? A public-domain electronic text allows full-text searching of place names and keywords and makes it easy to copy passages for notes, making it a good base text for extended reading and reference.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Andrews, Roy Chapman, 1884-1960 Author · American · 1884–1960

Roy Chapman Andrews (1884–1960) was an American explorer and naturalist who spent many years at the American Museum of Natural History. He is best known for leading expeditions into Central Asia, including the Gobi Desert, where he became famous for the discovery of dinosaur eggs—a find that provided important physical evidence for the study of dinosaur reproduction. The library holds his work Across Mongolian Plains, an account of his travels on the Mongolian Plateau. Public information about the details of his life is limited, but the book shows a writing style that combines a field reporter's immediacy with a naturalist's eye, blending landscape, travel observations, and scientific fieldwork. His work helped shape popular interest in Inner Asian exploration and paleontology.