The Angus Ivan Ward Collection of Russian accounts of Mongolia and China.

£29,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

Extensive collection of Russian works focusing mostly on Northern China and Mongolia, including important and rare travel, trade and exploration accounts. Assembled by Angus Ivan Ward, us consul in China and Russia during troubled times, and ambassador in Afghanistan. Ward (1893-1969) served in the U.S. Army during World War I and then became U.S. Vice Consul in Mukden, China, in 1926; then in Tientsin in 1927-29 and again in 1932. He was sent to Moscow in 1938, and served as U.S. Consul General in Vladivostok during WWII, in 1943. Before becoming U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan in 1952-56, he was back in Mukden as Consul in 1948, where he became the subject of the Ward Incident (1948-49). During the final years of the Chinese Civil War, Ward and the consulate staff were imprisoned and held under house arrest by Mao Zedong's People's Liberation Army for almost a year, creating a diplomatic rift with the United States. Ward's collection is remarkable for its wide range, comprising 150 years of Russian approach to China and their neighbouring region, Mongolia, before the Russian revolution. Including important as well as lesser works, most in first editions and all rarely found on the market, the collection not only presents an excellent panorama of Russian exploration of the region, but also allows a rare understanding of the commercial and diplomatic relations between these two giant states. It is completed by scholarly works on local languages and cultures. Although Russian e

• Binding: Hardcover

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