ABSTRACT
Frans Larson (1930) constructs a dominant imaginative geography, the Edenic Mongolia, in which the ideal primitiveness of Mongolia serves overly domesticated Europeans. Though he shows parallels to such romantic British travelers as Alexander Michie (1864) and William Whyte (1871), Larson (1930) complicates their Victorian theories of civilization and their depictions of Mongolians as essentially and naturally pastoral and primitive. For Larson, Mongolians’ pastoral way of life is a cultural practice, one intended to keep Mongolians distinct from Chinese identities and those of other dominant groups. Larson’s deep cultural understanding of Mongolia is a marker of his cosmopolitanism, which is, unfortunately, limited by the fact that his Edenic Mongolia is necessarily an anti-cosmopolitan space, one that cannot change and adapt.
