ABSTRACT
This chapter lays the foundation for the central theme of contesting Mongolia’s identity based on nomadism. The assumption that Mongolia is a nomadic nation is largely predicated upon Mongolia’s environmental and climatic conditions, which are understood to make Mongolia suitable for little else than pastoral nomadism. However, as this chapter argues, such understandings are simplistic and, worse, fatalistic and deterministic. To better attend to how this view of Mongolia is flawed, the chapter discusses environmental determinism both in its classical sense and in its recent reincarnation in social sciences. Drawing on Jared Diamond’s seminal work on Guns, Germ and Steel, the chapter critiques the fatalistic assumption scholars continue to make about societies based on their environmental conditions and shows how this assumption reinforces understandings of Mongolia as a nation of nomads.
