The Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia - Softcover

Reid, Anna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802776760 ISBN 13: 9780802776761

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2003

Synopsis

The fascinating history of an unknown people

A vivid mixture of history and reporting, The Shaman's Coat tells the story of some of the world's least-known peoples-the indigenous tribes of Siberia. Russia's equivalent to the Native Americans or Australian Aborigines, they divide into two dozen different and ancient nationalities-among them Buryat, Tuvans, Sakha, and Chukchi. Though they number more than one million and have begun to demand land rights and political autonomy since the fall of communism, most Westerners are not even aware that they exist.

Journalist and historian Anna Reid traveled the length and breadth of Siberia-one-twelfth of the world's land surface, larger than the United States and Western Europe combined-to tell the story of its people. Drawing on sources ranging from folktales to KGB reports, and on interviews with shamans and Buddhist monks, reindeer herders and whale hunters, camp survivors and Party apparatchiks, The Shaman's Coat travels through four hundred years of history, from the Cossacks' campaigns against the last of the Tatar khans to native rights activists against oil development. The result is a moving group portrait of extraordinary and threatened peoples, and a unique and intrepid travel chronicle.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Part history, part travelogue, The Shaman's Coat vividly portrays some of the world's most unique and threatened peoples.

Anna Reid investigates the indigenous Siberians, Russia's equivalent to the Native Americans or Australian Aborigines. Drawing on interviews with shamans and reindeer-herders, camp survivors and Party apparatchiks, The Shaman's Coat travels through four hundred years of history and across a twelfth of the world's land-surface, from Mongolia to the Bering Strait.

'An enlightening study of indigenous peoples and post-Soviet geopolitics, full of unexpected insights... It is no small achievement to make the reader want to see this eerie landscape for themselves' Scotland on Sunday

'She blends history and anthropology with travel experience to create a rare cocktail of a book...The oral history she chronicles is deeply moving' Literary Review

'Thoroughly researched and often powerfully described' Times Literary Supplement

'Reid has an agreeable style and a deadpan good humour that is very engaging, and she has an economy of description that occasionally borders on the miraculous...I have travelled in Siberia myself, and the authentic flavours of the place are here present on every page' Marq de Villiers

PHOENIX NON-FICTION/HISTORY UK £7.99 CAN $17.95

Cover photograph: [Details to follow]

Isbn: 1 84212 663 6

About the Author:

Anna Reid holds a master's degree in Russian history and reform economics from London University's School of Slavonic and East European Studies. She was the Kiev correspondent for the Economist and the Daily Telegraph from 1993 to 1995. Her first book, Borderland: A Journey through the History of the Ukraine, was published to wide acclaim in 1997. Ms. Reid lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0802776760
• ISBN 13: 9780802776761
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226