Travels in Northern Mongolia describes Don Croner's search deep into the heart of the Khangai Mountains of Mongolia for the source of the Yenisei-Angara-Selenga River System, the fifth longest river system in the world; his visits to locales connected with the life of Zanabazar (1635-1723), founder of the Gelugpa Sect of Buddhism in Mongolia, a world-class artist, and the first of Mongolia's eight Bogd Gegens; and a horseback trip to the upper Onon Valley, an area known as the Birthplace of the Mongols, including an ascent of Burkhan Khaldun, the mountain worshipped by Genghis Khan.

Since the time of the Xiongnu two thousand years ago the nomads of the Mongolian Plateau traditionally looked south toward China for both plunder and trade. In 1215 Chingis Khan turned his attention westward and by 1219 had decided to invade the Islamic realms of Inner Asia, unleashing a sequence of events that would result in the sack of Baghdad in 1258 by his grandson Khulegu and the fall of the 508 year-old Abbasid Caliphate. The dissolution of the Caliphate by Khulegu dealt a blow to the Islamic world from which some might argue it has never fully recovered. We are still to this day...