Nomads

Some of the greatest empires in history - those of Genghis Khan, Saladin, Shaka Zulu and Attila the Hun - were based on nomadic conquest. Even today the lives of nomads continue to exert fascination and this book, published to accompany a Channel 4 television series, looks at four nomadic peoples in some of the most remote and hostile regions on earth: the Turkana, from the barren Rift Valley of northern Kenya; the Mongols, descendants of Genghis Khan; the Even, reindeer herders from the Siberian Arctic; and the Hmenat, a faction of the renowned Mechaout warrior tribe of eastern Mauritania. Each chapter is written by an anthropologist who has lived and worked with the tribe concerned and portrays the problems and challenges it faces in attempting to adapt to the modern world.