Recent BooksNovember/December 2019 219since the country’s transition in 1990
from communism to a troubled but still
functioning democracy. Whatever the
state o Mongolia’s domestic politics,
the enduring geostrategic reality is the
presence o two large, intrusive neigh-
bors, China and Russia. Mongolia’s “third
neighbor” policy osets their inÁuence
by pursuing relations with as many
other countries and institutions as pos-
sible, including the United States, the
¤, and Asian democracies—and also
North Korea, which Mongolian ocials
see as a potential transit route to the
PaciÄc, and Iran and Turkey, two
countries seeking to diversify their own
foreign relations. Mongolia has been less
successful in avoiding economic depen-
dence on China. The collapse o the
Soviet Union led to the “renomadization”
o much o the Mongolian workforce
when trade and aid from Moscow
ended, leaving the economy increas-
ingly reliant on Chinese investments
in and purchases from the country’s
coal, copper, and iron mines and oil
Äelds. The only way out o this depen-
dency would be to strengthen links
with other economies, which ironically
would depend on persuading Beijing
to include Mongolia in its Belt and
Road Initiative.The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War
BY JEREMY A. YELLEN. Cornell
University Press, 2019, 306 pp.The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere, a supranational framework
promoted by Japan from the 1930s to
1945, has a bad reputation in history as a
thin disguise for World War II–era
Japanese imperialism. But Yellen showsNightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary
Guerrillas
BY ALPA SHAH. University o Chicago
Press, 2019, 320 pp.
Over years o Äeldwork, the anthropolo-
gist Shah gained unusual access to the
leftist Naxalite insurgency that has
persisted in the hills and forests o central
and eastern India for over 50 years. She
builds her analysis around a dramatic
narrative o a seven-night, 155-mile march
she took with a platoon o guerillas. The
Maoist movement is rooted in disadvan-
taged Adivasi, or tribal, communities and
led by educated, middle-class cadres from
elsewhere in the country. Shah dismisses
theories that peasants join insurgencies for
economic beneÄts or for protection,
emphasizing instead the emotional bonds
the guerillas form with young Adivasis by
treating them as equals. She balances her
mostly favorable picture o the insurgency
with accounts o how movement leaders
insinuate themselves alongside bureau-
crats and politicians into the informal
economy o protection payos and illegal
logging, how some guerillas join merce-
nary gangs that cooperate with the police,
and how the movement’s Maoist doctrine
on gender repression blinds it to the
relatively egalitarian reality o Adivasi
gender relations. Her recurring theme is
the unending cycle o violence among
exploitative landlords, the oppressed tribal
people, and the military, whose frontline
soldiers are also young Adivasis.
Mongolia’s Foreign Policy: Navigating a
Changing World
BY ALICIA CAMPI. Lynne Rienner,
2019, 349 pp.
Campi provides a richly informative
survey o Mongolian foreign policy