Breeze & Storm

Nomadic people have been associated with storm rather than breeze in terms of their activities across Asia. The collection of essays in this volume however emphasizes both, but gives more space to breeze in terms of cultural interaction and mutual influence with sedentary societies. In general, cultural influence is perceived as coming from sedentary societies as a "civilizing process" and effecting nomads. Essays in this volume do not speak of a "higher" culture affecting a "lower" culture, but look at the nomads and the sedentary people as equals in terms of human interaction, cultural influences existing in political structures, trade, aesthetic patterns and oral literature. In addition, the stormy aspect is not focused solely on conquests, but rather on the processes of socio-political change within nomadic societies. A look not from the vantage point of an outsider, but more from the inside, raises new questions as to gender roles within nomadic societies especially among the Mongols.