--- product_id: 35495513 title: "Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River Between Russia and China" brand: "dominic ziegler" price: "HK$244" currency: HKD in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.hk/products/35495513-black-dragon-river-a-journey-down-the-amur-river-between store_origin: HK region: Hong Kong --- # Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River Between Russia and China **Brand:** dominic ziegler **Price:** HK$244 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River Between Russia and China by dominic ziegler - **How much does it cost?** HK$244 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.hk](https://www.desertcart.hk/products/35495513-black-dragon-river-a-journey-down-the-amur-river-between) ## Best For - dominic ziegler enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted dominic ziegler brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description “As the book’s subtitle indicates, Mr. Ziegler uses one of the world’s great rivers as a vehicle to pursue this story—and what a vehicle it is. . . . [He] writes beautifully, and with the fervor of a naturalist.” — The Wall Street Journal “The writing is superb . . . a true labour of love, Black Dragon River is a triumph.” — The Spectator Black Dragon River is a personal journey down one of Asia’s great rivers that reveals the region’s essential history and culture. The world’s ninth largest river, the Amur serves as a large part of the border between Russia and China. As a crossroads for the great empires of Asia, this area offers journalist Dominic Ziegler a lens with which to examine the societies at Europe's only borderland with east Asia. He follows a journey from the river's top to bottom, and weaves the history, ecology and peoples to show a region obsessed with the past—and to show how this region holds a key to the complex and critical relationship between Russia and China today. One of Asia’s mightiest rivers, the Amur is also the most elusive. The terrain it crosses is legendarily difficult to traverse. Near the river’s source, Ziegler travels on horseback from the Mongolian steppe into the taiga, and later he is forced by the river’s impassability to take the Trans-Siberian Railway through the four-hundred-mile valley of water meadows inland. As he voyages deeper into the Amur wilderness, Ziegler also journeys into the history of the peoples and cultures the river’s path has transformed. The known history of the river begins with Genghis Khan and the rise of the Mongolian empire a millennium ago, and the story of the region has been one of aggression and conquest ever since. The modern history of the river is the story of Russia's push across the Eurasian landmass to China. For China, the Amur is a symbol of national humiliation and Western imperial land seizure; to Russia it is a symbol of national regeneration, its New World dreams and eastern prospects. The quest to take the Amur was to be Russia’s route to greatness, replacing an oppressive European identity with a vibrant one that faced the Pacific. Russia launched a grab in 1854 and took from China a chunk of territory equal in size nearly to France and Germany combined. Later, the region was the site for atrocities meted out on the Russian far east in the twentieth century during the Russian civil war and under Stalin. The long shared history on the Amur has conditioned the way China and Russia behave toward each other—and toward the outside world. To understand Putin’s imperial dreams, we must comprehend Russia’s relationship to its far east and how it still shapes the Russian mind. Not only is the Amur a key to Putinism, its history is also embedded in an ongoing clash of empires with the West. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Dimensions | 5.51 x 0.79 x 8.39 inches | | Edition | Reprint | | Isbn 10 | 0143109898 | | Isbn 13 | 978-0143109891 | | Item Weight | 12.2 ounces | | Language | English | | Print Length | 368 pages | | Publication Date | November 8, 2016 | | Publisher | Penguin Publishing Group | ## Images ![Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River Between Russia and China - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/913P7a-vqgL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Dramatic History of a Little Known Region *by on Reviewed in the United States January 25, 2016* This book is a product of comprehensive scholarship covering multiple fields of research, yet it is a fascinating read. Having on hand a detailed atlas featuring the geography of the remote region covered- the shared border of far eastern Russia, northern China, and Mongolia- will be very helpful to the reader. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ More White Russian and Siberian Pioneer history than anything *by on Reviewed in the United States December 14, 2019* A bit of a false billing from what I had in mind, but still engaging. This included much more Russian history than I was anticipating. I was expecting a more detailed glimpse at the smaller or less-known people's of the Amur. The Tungusic family tree was only touched on while many White Russian stories were expounded upon. In the beginning, Ziegler starts with the Mongols and the book is really engaging and interesting. However, as the book moves along he stays to focus more and more on Russian expansion and three plight of Siberian pioneers. I was hoping for more tribal and ethnic minority history along the Amur and revived almost none of that in the last two-thirds of the book. It was still engaging and interesting though, and Ziegler narrates well. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The far side of the moon… *by on Reviewed in the United States February 2, 2021* Of the various nooks and crannies of this planet, some of which I have fortunately visited, many more of which I have read about, the area for me that is almost a complete blank spot is the northeast corner of the Asian landmass. And I suspect that is true for many people. The Amur River is the world’s 9th longest, at 2826 miles, with two main tributaries, the Shitka and the Argun. The river has largely served as a border throughout history between Russia and China. Dominic Ziegler is the Economist’s Asian Editor. He does not float down this river. In fact, by boat, he probably traveled only 5% of its length. Access and borders are a problem. He must travel back and forth in order to touch parts of it, but does, from its source in the mountains in Mongolia, where you can step across it, to the coastal town of Nikolaevsk, where it empties into the Sea of Okhotsk, part of the Pacific Ocean. Ziegler is phenomenally knowledgeable about the history of man in the region, in particular the collision of the Russian, Mongolian and Chinese empires. This fascinating history of that “blank spot” in my knowledge was published in 2016.Consider what Ziegler says about the right bank of the Amur, after it makes its last major turn, just beyond Khaborovsk, and runs due north to the ocean: “The forests of the Sikhote-Alin end at the ocean’s edge, and there tough, frugal species of the northern taiga merge with unlikely southern ones in a new wet-temperate zone. Summers are muggier, and winters milder. The shallow-rooting conifers of the boreal forest – spruce, larch and fir – meet with deciduous trees that put down deeper roots in the warmer soil. In the valleys toward the coast, there is a lushness to things; the tall Mongolian oak; the Amur lime with heart-shaped leaves and sprays of cream flowers; a yellow maple; the ashen willow. A thick undergrowth now fills the woods: winged spindlewood, spiraea, rhododendrons, viburnums… peonies and iris and lady-slipper orchids…hydrangeas shoot fifty feet up trees in search of light.” The best part, as he states elsewhere, it is largely uninhabited! It’s enough to make me pack my bags and COVID “passport,”… if only the Russians would let me in. Ziegler does venture into this area, pre-COVID, and his guide shows him a relief carving on the blacken basalt rock of an underwater serpent, with beard, the Black dragon, embodiment of the Amur itself. It had been largely assumed that this meant the Chinese had inhabited this area in the days of yore, but could it have been the other way around… that the aboriginal people here who carved it millenniums ago gave the concept of the dragon to the Chinese? Definitely intriguing, and unlikely ever to be answered.Way, way back upstream, there is the Onon tributary, deemed by geographers as the “source” of the Amur, since it is the most distant point from the sea. In this area Genghis Khan was born and on the “sacred” Burkhan Khaldun Mountain he is purportedly buried. From a rough beginning, he created the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever known, stretching from central Europe and Baghdad to northeastern China. And then it largely disintegrated and disappeared. Zingler deftly explains how all of this happened, another fascinating aspect of the book.Imagine, almost two centuries before Lewis and Clark crossed the American landmass to the Pacific Ocean, Ivan Moskvitin, in 1639, crossed the Asian landmass to reach the Pacific. Alas, there are no journals. The author presents an excellent account of the Russian expansion to the Far East, in part by sending their misfits (I’d probably have been sent, if I was Russian). Cossacks, or those who invented a Cossack past, came in droves. “The Decembrists,” the revolutionaries who led a maladroit uprising against Czar Nicholas I, in 1825 were exiled there, if they were not hanged. Zion was there also, yes, a Jewish homeland. Much like in America, the native peoples were overwhelmed, with a few assimilating. And China has always considered the Russians different than those other Western imperialists since they signed a treaty of commerce at Nerchinsk, in 1689 that regulated their affairs for almost two centuries. Ziegler also hunts down some Russian veterans of the skirmish with the Chinese over an island in the Amur in 1969. Like a lot of veterans, they now wonder what it was all for.I learned of this book from a former fellow Amazon reviewer who, regrettably, is now insisting on keeping his light under a bushel basket. This book was another great recommendation from him. 6-stars. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.hk/products/35495513-black-dragon-river-a-journey-down-the-amur-river-between](https://www.desertcart.hk/products/35495513-black-dragon-river-a-journey-down-the-amur-river-between) --- *Product available on Desertcart Hong Kong* *Store origin: HK* *Last updated: 2026-08-15*