| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in The Bloody White Baron for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Book Description
The astonishing lost story of the insane mystic who conquered Mongolia in 1920 and led a cavalry army against the Bolsheviks in Moscow.
Product Description
Roman Ungern von Sternberg was a Baltic aristocrat, a violent, headstrong youth posted to the wilds of Siberia and Mongolia before the First World War. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Baron - now in command of a lethally effective rabble of cavalrymen - conquered Mongolia, the last time in history a country was seized by an army mounted on horses. He was a Kurtz-like figure, slaughtering everyone he suspected of irreligion or of being a Jew. And his is a story that rehearses later horrors in Russia and elsewhere. James Palmer's book is an epic recreation of a forgotten episode and will establish him as a brilliant popular historian.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you think that history goes back about 5,000 years you realise pretty quickly that the vast amount of people who were famous in their time almost always fade away to obscurity. I like reading books about these people as they are usually fascinating tales of major players long forgotten. The problem with these characters is quite often the written sources are meagre and almost invariably their early lives are shrouded by mystery. Consequently these books tend to start vague and get better as they go along.
This book falls exactly into this category and this natural problem is then compounded by just 2 maps to show the life of man who travelled around the vast expanses of the Russian and Mongolian steppes and despite there being numerous photos of him, his contemporaries and the locations mentioned there are no pictures save the covers. This is not good enough, it's virtually standard issue to have some pictures in the middle of a non-fiction book, if they can do it for Hawkwood, a 14th century mercenary, then they can certainly do it for a man who we know actually posed for photographs.
Grumbles over. Ungern Sternberg is a fascinating and deranged individual. The story touching on such major events as the Russo-Japanese War, World War 1, The Russian Revolution and the civil war in China, it also helps show the rise of murderous anti-semitism. As the author keeps reminding the reader many of the stories sound almost medieval but this was of the time of the motorcar and telephone! It also reminds you how awful the 1920's were for most of the world's population where innocents were savaged by roaming bandits of one side or another across Asia and as far as Poland.
Ungern is not a likeable protagonist, clearly psychopathic and full of hatred he is an instrument of war and a horror to all around him both friend and foe alike. Saying that, he is a great story and it helps you understand a little bit more of the political mess that was the decade after World War 1. It is a little odd for one of the other reviewers to say there are too many long or unpronounceable names in this book- this is a story set either in Russia or Mongolia so there's nobody called Colin in it but the author strips away the exotica and it is easy to follow. The book also does a good job of showing the less glamorous side of Buddhism too (don't recall any of my Western Buddhist friends mentioning the high mortality rate of earlier Dalai Lamas).
So if you want to read something different then go get it, the issues are annoying rather than fundamental flaws and the story is utterly absorbing.
This book falls exactly into this category and this natural problem is then compounded by just 2 maps to show the life of man who travelled around the vast expanses of the Russian and Mongolian steppes and despite there being numerous photos of him, his contemporaries and the locations mentioned there are no pictures save the covers. This is not good enough, it's virtually standard issue to have some pictures in the middle of a non-fiction book, if they can do it for Hawkwood, a 14th century mercenary, then they can certainly do it for a man who we know actually posed for photographs.
Grumbles over. Ungern Sternberg is a fascinating and deranged individual. The story touching on such major events as the Russo-Japanese War, World War 1, The Russian Revolution and the civil war in China, it also helps show the rise of murderous anti-semitism. As the author keeps reminding the reader many of the stories sound almost medieval but this was of the time of the motorcar and telephone! It also reminds you how awful the 1920's were for most of the world's population where innocents were savaged by roaming bandits of one side or another across Asia and as far as Poland.
Ungern is not a likeable protagonist, clearly psychopathic and full of hatred he is an instrument of war and a horror to all around him both friend and foe alike. Saying that, he is a great story and it helps you understand a little bit more of the political mess that was the decade after World War 1. It is a little odd for one of the other reviewers to say there are too many long or unpronounceable names in this book- this is a story set either in Russia or Mongolia so there's nobody called Colin in it but the author strips away the exotica and it is easy to follow. The book also does a good job of showing the less glamorous side of Buddhism too (don't recall any of my Western Buddhist friends mentioning the high mortality rate of earlier Dalai Lamas).
So if you want to read something different then go get it, the issues are annoying rather than fundamental flaws and the story is utterly absorbing.
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I've been fascinated by this period of Mongolian history ever since I found a musty old copy of Ossendowski's Beasts, Men and Gods in a used bookstore years ago, so I was very happy to find a new look at those times in this book. Finding sources or historical writing on this period is difficult, at least here in the US, since Outer Mongolia almost seems to be a fictitious country in itself. Fortunately, James Palmer has travelled the East and waded through the various scraps and pieces of its history and pulled together a picture of a fascinating, if horrendous, figure who stamped his mark upon the era. Ossendowski's book, while purportedly true, reads like a pulp adventure novel, and his account of Baron Ungern certainly makes a modern reader believe that he must have been made up. Not so, of course, even though the picture that Palmer is able to put together of the man in some ways seems even more extreme. The Baron, or Bloody Baron, or Bloody Mad Baron, as he has variously been called, was all too real a person, and his insane, murderous actions were all too common during this period.
There is a perception in the modern West that Buddhism is perhaps unique amongst the world's major faiths in not lending itself to the kinds of wars and conflicts that, for example, Christianity and Islam have been such prominent players in. And while its certainly true that Buddhism has been a relatively peaceful religion, history, and certainly this history, shows how even the dharma can be turned towards violence, and how ethnic divisions, superstitions and unjust conditions can be exploited by cunning leaders to turn even the most peaceful doctrine into a permission for bloody conflict. Ungern was a curious mix of Christian, occultist and mystical Buddhist wannabe, driven by a belief in prophecy and armoring himself with magical charms (who can say they didn't work? He certainly never took a bullet on the battlefield with those charms hanging from his neck). In some ways the template for the kind of Aristocratic European Occultist that would later become such a stock character by way of the Nazis, his life and exploits make for fascinating reading, even if only as a cautionary tale about the kind of beast that wars and prejudice can create out of man.
My only complaint about this book is the lack of photographs. The author describes a number of photos of the Baron at various points in his story, but none of them are included outside of the dust jacket. I hope the publisher can add these in future editions.
There is a perception in the modern West that Buddhism is perhaps unique amongst the world's major faiths in not lending itself to the kinds of wars and conflicts that, for example, Christianity and Islam have been such prominent players in. And while its certainly true that Buddhism has been a relatively peaceful religion, history, and certainly this history, shows how even the dharma can be turned towards violence, and how ethnic divisions, superstitions and unjust conditions can be exploited by cunning leaders to turn even the most peaceful doctrine into a permission for bloody conflict. Ungern was a curious mix of Christian, occultist and mystical Buddhist wannabe, driven by a belief in prophecy and armoring himself with magical charms (who can say they didn't work? He certainly never took a bullet on the battlefield with those charms hanging from his neck). In some ways the template for the kind of Aristocratic European Occultist that would later become such a stock character by way of the Nazis, his life and exploits make for fascinating reading, even if only as a cautionary tale about the kind of beast that wars and prejudice can create out of man.
My only complaint about this book is the lack of photographs. The author describes a number of photos of the Baron at various points in his story, but none of them are included outside of the dust jacket. I hope the publisher can add these in future editions.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is a well-written and lucid account of a fascinating figure.The baron was a man out of his time,he would have been perfectly at home as victorian adventurer and he might have died peacefully in his bed.As it was in a new century of political turmoil, his career was short and bloody.The author deftly decribes the life and times of a man who pre-figured the holocaust and the worst aspects of the twentieth century.The fact that he was also a devout buddist is just one of his contradictions.The only real flaw with book is the lack of illustrations.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
History revisited - and badly
I was expecting a portrait of Baron Ungern-Sternberg. What I got is a lot of nonsense commentaries. Baron Ungern-Sternberg was a bloody maniac - but to cast the man in his true... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Serge Berthier
fact or misconception
One thing really startled me reading this book was the author's constant statement that Mongolia has been under Chinese rule for three hundred years. Read more
Published 15 months ago by mongolia
not so hot
I have given up at page 134. Ungern is virtually absent in this his own biography. There is a criminal lack of depth to any of this eg We are told that Ungern was a master of... Read more
Published on 23 Mar 2010 by Grushenko
Stretched Out Term Paper
Like several of the reviewers have already pointed out, source material for Baron Ungern seems quite thin on the ground and at various times it feels like the author is grasping... Read more
Published on 8 July 2009 by Miran Ali
Check Your Spelling!
I found this an interesting study of a post-revolutionary figure who I previously knew little about. Read more
Published on 10 May 2009 by T. R. Cowdret
Where's the beef?
First of all I want to agree with another reviewer who laments the fact that there are no photos. Given the scope and the characters who populate this story, it would have been an... Read more
Published on 4 May 2009 by jayd
Worthwhile read about a bizarre man in turbulent times
'The bloody white baron' is the bizarre story of a Baltic aristocrat and his adventures as a General of the Whites in Siberia and Mongolia during the Russian civil war. Read more
Published on 8 April 2009 by Basileus
engrossing
an extremely well researched acount of a "war" that is little known. The Baron himself was made for Hammer Films. Sorry there was no mention of Teapot
Published on 26 Mar 2009 by I. Skidmore
Gripping account of forgotten episode
James Palmer's evocation of the White Baron and his extraordinary story is one of those accounts of a forgotten figure which makes for a gripping and vivid book that should appeal... Read more
Published on 15 Mar 2009 by J. Fenby
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > 1901 Onwards
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Russia
- Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Russia
- Books > History
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
