In Young Mongols and Vigilantes in Inner Mongolia’s Interregnum Decades, 1911-1931, a vivid narrative of the underground world of pan-Mongolist agitation in China, the author shows how the paradoxical legacy of China’s New Policies reforms left ethnically-based nationalism as the only common denominator for political action.

In the turbulent years of China’s warlord republic, educated Mongol nationalists and rural vigilantes sought to unify Inner Mongolia with the independent state in Mongolia proper. Brought together by the Soviet embassy, the nationalists fought for an autonomous Inner Mongolia until their final doomed uprisings of 1928.

Based on previously closed Mongolian archives, Young Mongols and Vigilantes is a path-breaking contribution to the history of Soviet involvement in Inner Mongolia, Chinese Communist nationality policy, and the social history of multi-ethnic Inner Mongolia.