The Transnational Cult of Mount Wutai explores the pan-East Asian significance of sacred Mount Wutai from the Northern Dynasties to the present.

Central Asia and Siberia are characterized by multiethnic societies formed by a patchwork of often small ethnic groups. At the same time large parts of them have been dominated by state languages, especially Russian and Chinese. On a local level the languages of the autochthonous people often play a role parallel to the central national language. The contributions of this conference proceeding follow up on topics such as: What was or is collected and how can it be used under changed conditions in the research landscape, how does it help local ethnic communities to understand and preserve their own culture and language? Do the spatially dispersed but often networked collections support research on the ground? What contribution do these collections make to the local languages and cultures against the backdrop of dwindling attention to endangered groups? These and other questions are discussed against the background of the important role libraries and private collections play for multiethnic societies in often remote regions that are difficult to reach.

Although the Russian Empire has traditionally been viewed as a European borderland, most of its territory was actually situated in Asia. Imperial power was huge but often suffered from a lack of enough information and resources to rule its culturally diverse subjects, and asymmetric relations between state and society combined with flexible strategies of local actors sometimes produced unexpected results. In Asiatic Russia, an international team of scholars explores the interactions between power and people in Central Asia, Siberia, the Volga-Urals, and the Caucasus from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, drawing on a wealth of Russian archival materials and Turkic, Persian, and Tibetan sources. The variety of topics discussed in the book includes the Russian idea of a "civilizing mission," the system of governor-generalships, imperial geography and demography, roles of Muslim and Buddhist networks in imperial rule and foreign policy, social change in the Russian Protectorate of Bukhara, Muslim reformist and national movements. The book is essential reading for students and scholars of Russian, Central Eurasian, and comparative imperial history, as well as imperial and colonial studies and nationalism studies. It may also provide some hints for understanding today’s world, where "empire" has again become a key word in international and domestic power relations.

In Tibetan Printing: Comparisons, Continuities and Change the editors publish the results of the workshop “Printing as an Agent of Change in Tibet and beyond” held at Pembroke College, Cambridge, in November 2013. This is the first study of the social and cultural history of Tibetan book technology that takes materials, living traditions and cross-cultural comparisons into consideration. Bringing together leading experts from different disciplines, it discusses the introduction of printing in Tibetan societies in the context of Asian book cultures with an eye to the questions raised by the study of the European history of printing. This title is available online in its entirety in Open Access. Contributors are: Tim Barrett, Alessandro Boesi, Peter Burke, Michela Clemente, Hildegard Diemberger, Dorje Gyeltsen, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Helmut Eimer, Johan Elverskog, Camillo Formigatti, Imre Galambos, Agnieszka Helman-Wazny, Tomasz Wazny, Sherab Sangpo Kawa, Peter Kornicki, Leonard van der Kuijp, Stefan Larsson, Ben Nourse, Anuradha Pallipurath, Porong Dawa, Paola Ricciardi, Tsering Dawa Sharshon, Sam van Schaik, Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Marta Sernesi, Pasang Wangdu.

Despite Mongolia's centrality to East Asian history and culture, Mongols themselves have often been seen as passive subjects on the edge of the Qing formation or as obedient followers of so-called "Tibetan Buddhism," peripheral to major literary, religious, and political developments. But in fact Mongolian Buddhists produced multi-lingual and genre-bending scholastic and ritual works that profoundly shaped historical consciousness, community identification, religious knowledge, and practices in Mongolian lands and beyond. In Sources of Mongolian Buddhism, a team of leading Mongolian scholars and authors have compiled a collection of original Mongolian Buddhist works--including ritual texts, poetic prayers and eulogies, legends, inscriptions, and poems--for the first time in any European language.

Tibet is a land of mysteries. It is not only about religion and occultism: its history remains largely hidden. This book disproves some of the erroneous views on the history and religion of the Tibetans. Tibet has never been a part of China. At the time when China was an inalienable part of the Mongolian Yuan Empire and Manchu Qing Empire, Tibet was a separate country dependent on the Mongol and Manchu emperors, but never lost its statehood. A widespread view that Tibet was an integral part of neighboring empires is related to an ancient Chinese concept of the emperor's universal power. Chinese claims to the "legacy" of the Mongol and Manchu empires are unfounded. Incorporating the name of the state into the "dynasty of China" concept ties sovereign states of other nations to Chinese dynastic history. The inclusion of Tibet into the People's Republic of China was not legitimate. Tibet is an occupied country. This book traces the history of Tibetan statehood from ancient times to our days, describes the life of the Tibetans at the times of Feudalism and Socialism, the coercive inclusion of Tibet into People's Republic of China, the suppression of the national liberation movement, the Cultural Revolution, and subsequent reforms. Many pictures and data concerning these events are being published for the first time. The book has garnered much interest in Russia, particularly in academic and political science circles.