In this deeply original study of the Mongols, leading scholar Uradyn E. Bulag draws on key themes of cosmopolitanism and friendship to develop a new concept he terms "collaborative nationalism." He uses this concept to explore the dilemma of minorities in China as they fight against being embraced too tightly in the bonds of "friendship." Through a rich array of case studies, Bulag illuminates the fierce competition among China, Japan, Mongolia, and Russia to appropriate the Mongol heritage to buttress their own national identities. Weighing the options the Mongols face, he argues that the ethnopolitical is not so much about identity as it is about the capacity of an ethnic group to decide and organize its own vision of itself, both within its community and in relation to other groups.

Uradyn E. Bulag is reader in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge.

Introduction: Triangulating China's Ethnopolitics
Part I: Subimperial Desires
Chapter 1: Hunting Chinggis Khan's Skull and Soul
Chapter 2: Lamas to the Rescue: Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism and Imperial Nationalisms
Part II: Collaborative Nationalism
Chapter 3: Friendship, Treason, and Collaborative Nationalism
Chapter 4: Yearning for Friendship: The Political in Minority Revolutionary History
Part III: Interethnic Intimacy
Chapter 5: The Flight of the Golden Pony: Socialism and the Stillbirth of the Mongolian Working Class
Chapter 6: Interethnic Adoption and the Regime of Affection
Conclusion: The Specter of Interethnic Friendship
Bibliography