The Gobi Desert: The History and Legacy of the Asia’s Largest Desert Free online reading

"The Gobi Desert seems like earth reduced to its most basic elements: rock, sky,glaring sunlight, and little else. The apparent emptiness is both compelling and intimidating. But the Gobi is not empty, it is filled with space, sky, history, and landscapes...." (Conservation Ink)

In August of 2008, London-based Jane Macartney published this striking description of the Gobi Desert in The Times: "On the Mongolian steppes, the emptiness and the silence inspire awe. From time to time, a huge, tawny eagle drifts on the breeze, watching for small animals to snatch amid the grasses. The only movement on the ground comes from the flocks of sheep and goats, yaks and cattle that roam, heads down, as they much their way across the grasslands...."

Alongside this stunning and therapeutic view of the grassland critters are a smattering of white yurts which belonged to the Mongolian nomads who now inhabit the land. Gazing upon the rest of the Gobi, furnished with rolling plains, sweeping steppes, cragged mountains, and singing sand dunes, the desert instills in one a similar sense of inner peace. In fact, these Kodak scenes are so picture-perfect that it is almost impossible to imagine the adventurous discoveries, devastating wars, colorful commerce, and dramatically different landscape that once appeared in its place.

The Gobi Desert: The History and Legacy of the Asia’s Largest Desert examines the history of Asia’s greatest desert. You will learn about the Gobi Desert like never before.