Sydney Writers' Festival 2010

In the history of the modern world, there have been few characters more sadistic, sinister and deeply demented as Baron Ungern-Sternberg. An anti-Semitic fanatic with a penchant for Eastern mysticism and a hatred of Communists, Baron Ungern-Sternberg took over Mongolia in 1920 with a ragtag force of White Russians, Siberians, Japanese and native Mongolians. While tormenting friend and foe alike, he dreamed of assembling a horse-borne army with which he would retake Communist-controlled Moscow.

Historian and travel writer James Palmer talks with Jane Gleeson-White about the gripping life story of a madman whose actions foreshadowed the most grotesque excesses of the 20th century.