Very interesting! ( )

Part travelogue, part colonial history, part anthropology, this book covers cultures that I certainly did not know anything about, so just because of that I enjoyed the book. However, while the organization is clear (geographical), the organization of the individual chapters becomes repetitive because of the similar stories and the rather slim evidence. The quest for shamans is, unfortunately, rather unsuccessful. ( )

A fascinating history of the indigenous peoples of Siberia recounted in travel journal format. Such is the vastness and remoteness of Siberia that most Westerners have never heard of the Khant, the Buryat, the Sakha or the Chukchi peoples. Yet, like the Belgians, Czechs or Danes, they number in millions.

This story is inevitably told in terms of the rise and fall of Soviet imperialism. Not the kind of imperialism much mentioned by Western fellow-travellers, but the Russian Communists in Siberia were as casually racist, brutal and unheeding of local sensibilities as any British settler 150 years ago in Tasmania.

It is also a story of hope. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian rulers of many Eastern outposts of empire simply abandoned them and went home. The locals may have difficulty putting their economy back together, but gain strength from their new found autonomy and sometimes from the rediscovery of old ways of survival. ( )

Sort of a travelogue, histoy and ethnicjournal of Russia east ofthe Urals. It was muchless about the natives than about the Russians. Which I guess shows you the nature of life in these parts. ( )