The Last Khan of the Steppe: Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, 1886–1921 This comprehensive study examines the life and career of Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, the Baltic German baron who briefly seized control of Mongolia in 1921 during the chaotic final phase of the Russian Civil War. Drawing on archival sources and synthesizing international scholarship, the work analyzes how Roman's aristocratic background, syncretic religious beliefs combining Christianity and Buddhism, and absolute opposition to modernity shaped his intervention in Mongolia. The study documents his remarkable military achievement in capturing Urga with a force of 1,460 cavalry against a Chinese garrison of 10,000, his subsequent five-month dictatorship characterized by systematic terror against Bolsheviks, Jews, and Chinese populations, and his ultimate capture and execution by Soviet forces. Central to the analysis is a profound geopolitical irony: Roman's anti-communist crusade, intended to prevent Soviet expansion, instead eliminated the Chinese buffer that might have delayed communist domination, leading directly to seventy years of Soviet control over Mongolia. The work argues that Roman's significance lies not in his stated ideological objectives—all of which failed comprehensively—but in unintended consequences including Mongolia's modern borders and national identity. By examining contested narratives across Russian, Western, and Mongolian cultures, the study illuminates how we construct memory around violent, chaotic historical actors and what such figures reveal about the limits of ideological conviction when divorced from strategic wisdom.