Commendatory Preface: Professor Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania

From Birth to Death is a scholarly monograph based on years of field work in Mongolia as well as original research in Asia, Europe and North America. It is an original and detailed ethnography of tea practices, female power and gendered meaning in Mongolia. It is also a welcome addition to the field by an African scholar of distinction who is one of the few Black African researchers in Central Asia.

This monograph is an important contribution to the study of lexical acquisition and the larger question of developing a standard Arabic as a second language through literacy. Since large numbers of individuals learn Arabic for religious as well as economic reasons in Africa , Central Asia and East Asia this topic has implications far beyond its focused discussion of semantic and formal properties in the process of analyzing Arabic words into patterns and underlying roots.

This monograph explores and describes the historical continuities and relationships between 20th c Zen Buddhism, the postwar psychedelic movement and postmodern eschatology. In general terms (and this is a rich, complex study) the work is a critique of modernization theory as a way of viewing history and suggests the modern epoch (like the Greco-Roman world before it) will only end when the modern world ends.

Foreword by Professor Wang Gungwu,former Vice Chancellor, University of Hong Kong and currently Director of the East asian Institute, University of Singapore