New York: Basic Books, 2008. — 274 p.
An even less known period of a little-known period of history, the effects of the Chinese Revolution and the Russian Civil War in Mongolia is dealt expertly by Palmer, who tries to understand not only the period of history, but the motivations and character of a frightening man. Combining history with first-hand accounts of the author's trip to Mongolia, the book reads like a thriller.
This is the biography of Baron Ungern-Sternberg, an obscure but fascinating and extraordinary man from the annals of early 20th-century history. He has striking similarities to Adolf Hitler: a sadistic and stunningly anti-Semetic madman with delusions of grandeur who was convinced he had been chosen to save the world, who was popular with the people at first and had many military victories, but whose excesses eventually cost him his cause, his country and his life. Ungern, a monarchist who saw Judaism and Bolshevism as the worst of evils, took over Mongolia in the nineteen-teens. He believed white people were decadent and tainted, and it was up to the Asians to save them. He was insanely suspicious of everyone and vicious and creative in his punishments of supposed traitors, Jews and Communist sympathizers. Very soon even the Mongolians, whose country he had liberated, got sick of him, and he wound up being captured by the Russians and, having tried to commit suicide and failed, was executed for treason.