For 70 years, the Gobi, one of the worlds richest yet least explored wildernesses, was all but barred to outsiders by Mongolia's position as a buffer-state between Russia and China. With the collapse of communism, however, the Gobi is beginning to br revealed in all its glorious diversity. Travelling from west to east across the Gobi, John Man retraced the steps of the early explorers, livingwith herdsmen, and drawing on the most recent scientific work, This core of Central Asia's heartland is extraordinarily rich in wildlife and astonishing natural beauty.

Foreword by Janet Yellen Weijian Shan's Out of the Gobi is a powerful memoir and commentary that will be one of the most important books on China of our time, one with the potential to re-shape how Americans view China, and how the Chinese view life in America. Shan, a former hard laborer who is now one of Asia's best-known financiers, is thoughtful, observant, eloquent, and brutally honest, making him well-positioned to tell the story of a life that is a microcosm of modern China, and of how, improbably, that life became intertwined with America. Out of the Gobi draws a vivid picture of the raw human energy and the will to succeed against all odds. Shan only finished elementary school when Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution tore his country apart. He was a witness to the brutality and absurdity of Mao’s policies during one of the most tumultuous eras in China’s history. Exiled to the Gobi Desert at age 15 and denied schooling for 10 years, he endured untold hardships without ever giving up his dream for an education. Shan’s improbable journey, from the Gobi to the “People’s Republic of Berkeley” and far beyond, is a uniquely American success story – told with a splash of humor, deep insight and rich and engaging detail. This powerful and personal perspective on China and America will inform Americans' view of China, humanizing the country, while providing a rare view of America from the prism of a keen foreign observer who lived the American dream. Says former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen: “Shan’s life provides a demonstration of what is possible when China and the United States come together, even by happenstance. It is not only Shan’s personal history that makes this book so interesting but also how the stories of China and America merge in just one moment in time to create an inspired individual so unique and driven, and so representative of the true sprits of both countries.”

Discover the desert in this fact-packed leveled reader! Welcome to the Gobi Desert, where you can find camels, scorpions, and even snow leopards! Explore this huge habitat and meet the many creatures that call it home. But keep an eye out for the ones that are no longer alive, too--the Gobi may have more dinosaur fossils than any other place on Earth! Learn more about this amazing place as well as how you can help protect and preserve it for future generations.

John Hare is a star author and one of the most well-known explorers of his generation. The Gobi is a perennially fascinating part of the world - a desert that people love to read about. China, the environment/natural world, exploration and discovery: broad and topical appeal.The Gobi is the largest, coldest and driest desert in Asia. Its shifting sands conceal ancient cities, 3,000-year-old mummies, dinosaur bones and areas where no man has set foot. It is also the last place on earth where the wild Bactrian camel clings to survival, its fragile habitat threatened by poachers and development. With the conservation of this elusive creature in mind, John Hare was inspired to venture into the wildest parts of the Chinese Gobi on an expedition during which they crossed a hundred miles of sand dunes, unexplored in recorded history. Several weeks into the journey, Hare and the team discovered, in two unmapped valleys, a population of wildlife with no experience of man.Interwoven with the account of his remarkable journey, Hare tells, for the first time, the story of an epic migration made by Kazakh nomads in flight from Chinese communists and describes the historic and current tensions between the Chinese and the indigenous Uighur population of Xinjiang. A blend of history and high adventure, discovery and conservation, "Mysteries of the Gobi" is a unique and compelling account of modern-day exploration.

In 2001, at the age of sixty-three, renowned adventurer Helen Thayer fulfilled her lifelong dream of crossing Mongolia's Gobi Desert. Accompanied by her seventy-four-year-old husband, Bill, and two camels, Tom and Jerry, Thayer walked 1600 miles in 126-degree temperatures, encountering fierce sandstorms, dehydration, dangerous drug smugglers, and ubiquitous scorpions. For more than sixty days Helen struggled to keep moving through some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth, despite a severe leg injury. Without sponsors, a support team, or radio contact, hers is a journey of pure discovery and adventure. Walking the Gobi takes readers on a trip through a little-known landscape and introduces them to the culture of the nomadic people whose ancestors have eked out an existence in the Gobi for thousands of years. Thayer's respect and admiration for the culture of the Gobi and her gentle weaving in of natural history shine throughout this remarkable story.

Starting in the Gobi desert in winter, adventurer Rob Lilwall sets out on an extraordinary six-month journey, walking almost 5000 kilometres across China. Along the way he and his cameraman Leon brave the toxic insides of China's longest road tunnel, explore desolate stretches of the Great Wall and endure interrogation by the Chinese police. As they walk on through the heart of China, the exuberant hospitality of cave dwellers, coal miners and desert nomads keeps them going, despite sub-zero blizzards and the treacherous terrain. Rob writes with humour and honesty about the hardships of the walk, reflecting on the nature of pilgrimage and the uncertainties of an adventuring career. He also gives a unique insight into life on the road amid the epic landscapes and rapidly industrialising cities of backwater China.

In the tradition of Douglas Chadwick's best-selling adventure memoir, The Wolverine Way, Tracking Gobi Grizzlies creates a portrait of these rarest of bears' fight for survival in one of the toughest, most remote settings on Earth. He demonstrates why saving this endangered animal supports an entire ecosystem made up of hundreds of interconnected plants and animals, from desert roses to Asiatic lynx and wild double-humped camels, all adapting as best they can to the effects of climate change. A parable of environmental stewardship in a legendary realm.

Francis Younghusband was an explorer and soldier best known for leading the controversial British military mission to Lhasa, Tibet in 1903-4. In 1886 Younghusband was granted leave from his military post in British India to accompany the explorer H.E.M. James on a seven-month journey around Manchuria. After completing this expedition, Younghusband received permission in March 1887 to undertake an overland journey from Peking (Beijing) to India. Traveling alone with just hired guides, Younghusband crossed the Gobi Desert to reach Hami (China), and proceeded from there over the Himalayan Mountains via Kashgar (present-day Kashi, China) and the Muztagh Pass to Kashmir. He reached Srinagar on November 2 and his post at Rawalpindi on November 4, exactly seven months after his departure from Beijing. Younghusand recorded this journey in the first eight chapters of his The Heart of a Continent. In 1890-91 Younghusband undertook further travels to the Pamir Mountains (chiefly in present-day Tajikistan, with parts in Afghanistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan) and the Karakoram Range, the unclaimed corridor between Afghanistan and China. He and his superiors in the Indian government suspected that the Russians might be looking for an invasion route to India through these mountains, and one object of his travels was to search for signs of Russian activity. Younghusband recounted these expeditions in the remaining chapters of the book. The book provides descriptions of spectacular scenery and of the peoples - Chinese, Kalmak (Kalmyk), Kirghiz (Kyrgyz), Tajik, Hunza, and others - that he meets. It also recounts several meetings with Russian reconnoitering parties, including one in the Pamir Mountains in August 1891 with a Russian detachment of more than 30 Cossack soldiers that resulted in a diplomatic clash between Britain and Russia. After an initial friendly meeting, the Russian staff officer in command of the party, Colonel Yonoff, declared that Younghusband was on territory claimed by Russia and that he was under orders to escort the British intruder across the border to China. This encounter led to the lodging of a diplomatic protest by the British embassy in Saint Petersburg and a subsequent apology by the Russian government and an acknowledgement that Yonoff had been operating outside the Russian sphere of influence. The book contains illustrations and several maps, including a large foldout "Map of the Northern Frontier of India." Widely praised for his explorations, Younghusband was elected the youngest fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1890 and named Companion of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1891.

Danzan Ravjaa (1803-1856), officially known as the Fifth Noyon Incarnate Lama of the Gobi Desert, is perhaps Mongolia's most beloved saint. The Fourth had caused so many scandals that the Manchu Emperor banned his reincarnation. Consequently, when the young child was enthroned as the Fifth, the Emperor issued an edict of execution on the boy and all associated with the event. The child was only saved by the personal intervention of the Fourth Panchen Lama and a letter of appeal from the young Ninth Dalai Lama, Luntok Gyatso. Their efforts proved well worthwhile, for the boy went on to become one of the greatest mystics and creative geniuses of 19th-century Mongolia. Lama of the Gobi is an investigative account of the life and times of this extraordinary man. It takes the reader on a journey through Mongolian history, Tibetan Buddhism and the traditions of nomadic culture to generate an appreciation of both the man and the many legends that surround him. This revealing story winds its way from Danzan Ravjaa's mythic past until the present day - as the people of the Gobi Desert still faithfully maintain his cult-like status. Book jacket.