HEDIN, Sven. The Flight of the "Big Horse". The Trail of War in Central Asia. New York: Dutton and Co. 1936.
8vo. Publisher's blue cloth, pictorial dust wrapper with image of hundreds of young Ma Chung-Yin's Army conscripts to front and advertisements to back, red lettering to spine and upper cloth cover, map endpapers (browned, as usual); pp. xv, 247, over 100 full-page illustrations from photographs; rubbing and creasing to extremities of dust wrapper with closed tear to back, a very good copy; bookplate Neville Howell Ehmann on front fly-leaf.
First US edition. Published in England as "Big Horse's Flight". In 1934, Sven Hedin headed an expedition into China which led him into the province of Sinkiang, where civil war was raging. Oppression by the ruler had met with a revolt by the Turkish and Tungan population led by "Big Horse" (General Ma Chung-Jin) and which ended in defeat and the 'flight of Big Horse'. The expedition's eye witness accounts and direct involvement in the conflict make this fascinating reading about a region where ethnic tensions won't go away.
Yakushi H118.
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