Author: Peter B. Golden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199793174
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
A vast region stretching roughly from the Volga River to Manchuria and the northern Chinese borderlands, Central Asia has been called the "pivot of history," a land where nomadic invaders and Silk Road traders changed the destinies of states that ringed its borders, including pre-modern Europe, the Middle East, and China. In Central Asia in World History, Peter B. Golden provides an engaging account of this important region, ranging from prehistory to the present, focusing largely on the unique melting pot of cultures that this region has produced over millennia. Golden describes the traders who braved the heat and cold along caravan routes to link East Asia and Europe; the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan and his successors, the largest contiguous land empire in history; the invention of gunpowder, which allowed the great sedentary empires to overcome the horse-based nomads; the power struggles of Russia and China, and later Russia and Britain, for control of the area. Finally, he discusses the region today, a key area that neighbors such geopolitical hot spots as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China.
Author: European Society for Central Asian Studies. International Conference
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 9783825883096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 490
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Book Description
Despite its geostrategic importance and its easier accessibility since the dissolvent of the Soviet Union, Central Asia has nevertheless remained a white spot on the map of western scholarship and public awareness. Bringing together papers presented at the VII ESCAS-Conference, this volume aims to shed light on the historical, political, cultural and socio-economic development of this region. Scholars from within and outside Central Asia discuss a wide range of topics, covering historical processes and events on the one hand and present developments of regional and global concern on the other.
Author: European Society for Central Asian Studies. International Conference
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 9783825885861
Category : Asia, Central
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
This volume aims to shed light on the historical, political, cultural, and socio-economic development of Central Asia. Scholars from within and outside the area discuss a wide range of topics, covering historical processes and events on the one hand, and present developments of regional and global concern on the other. Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek is an assistant professor at the University of Vienna. Julia Katschnig teaches at the University of Applied Sciences for Business and Technics at Wieselburg, Austria.
Author: Yuriy Malikov
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793612188
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379
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Book Description
Modern Central Asia: A Primary Source Reader is an academic resource that discusses the basic political, social, and economic evolution of Central Asian civilization in its colonial (1731–1991) and post-colonial (1991–present) periods. Among other aspects of Central Asian history, this source reader discusses resistance and accommodation of native societies to the policies of the imperial center, the transformation of Central Asian societies under Tsarist and Soviet rule, and the history of Islam in Central Asia and its role in nation and state-building processes. This primary source book will be instrumental for familiarizing students with the nationality policies of imperial Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet governments as well as the effects produced by these policies on the natives of the region. The documents collected in this reader challenge the traditional approach, which has viewed Central Asians as passive recipients of the policies imposed on them by central authorities. Modern Central Asia: A Primary Source Reader demonstrates the active participation of the indigenous peoples in contact with other peoples by examining the natives’ ways of organizing societies, their pre-colonial experience of contact with outsiders, and the structure of their subsistence systems. The source book will also help students situate the major events and activities of Central Asia in a global context. In addition to the value of this collection to the Central Asian historical record, many of the included texts will be essential for comparative analyses and cross-disciplinary approaches in the study of world history.
Author: Alexander Cooley
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199812004
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
The struggle between Russia and Great Britain over Central Asia in the nineteenth century was the original "great game." But in the past quarter century, a new "great game" has emerged, pitting America against a newly aggressive Russia and a resource-hungry China, all struggling for influence over one of the volatile areas in the world: the long border region stretching from Iran through Pakistan to Kashmir. In Great Games, Local Rules, Alexander Cooley, one of America's most respected Central Asia experts, explores the dynamics of the new competition over the region since 9/11. All three great powers are pursuing important goals: basing rights for the US, access to natural resources for the Chinese, and increased political influence for the Russians. But Central Asian governments have proven themselves powerful forces in their own right, establishing local rules that serve to fend off foreign involvement, enrich themselves and reinforce their sovereign authority. Cooley's careful and surprising explanation of how small states interact with great powers in this vital region greatly advances our understanding of how world politics actually works in this contemporary era.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Adeeb Khalid
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691235198
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 576
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Book Description
A major history of Central Asia and how it has been shaped by modern world events Central Asia is often seen as a remote and inaccessible land on the peripheries of modern history. Encompassing Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and the Xinjiang province of China, it in fact stands at the crossroads of world events. Adeeb Khalid provides the first comprehensive history of Central Asia from the mid-eighteenth century to today, shedding light on the historical forces that have shaped the region under imperial and Communist rule. Predominantly Muslim with both nomadic and settled populations, the peoples of Central Asia came under Russian and Chinese rule after the 1700s. Khalid shows how foreign conquest knit Central Asians into global exchanges of goods and ideas and forged greater connections to the wider world. He explores how the Qing and Tsarist empires dealt with ethnic heterogeneity, and compares Soviet and Chinese Communist attempts at managing national and cultural difference. He highlights the deep interconnections between the "Russian" and "Chinese" parts of Central Asia that endure to this day, and demonstrates how Xinjiang remains an integral part of Central Asia despite its fraught and traumatic relationship with contemporary China. The essential history of one of the most diverse and culturally vibrant regions on the planet, this panoramic book reveals how Central Asia has been profoundly shaped by the forces of modernity, from colonialism and social revolution to nationalism, state-led modernization, and social engineering.
Author: Ahmed Rashid
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681370883
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
A seminal introduction to the rise of Central Asia, covering Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan The Resurgence of Central Asia is Ahmed Rashid’s seminal study of the states that emerged in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. All have Muslim majorities and ancient histories but are otherwise very different. Rashid’s book, now with a new introduction by the author examining some of the crucial political developments since its first publication in 1994, provides entrée to this little-known but geopolitically important region. Rashid gives a history of each country, including its incorporation into Tsarist Russia, to the present day, provides basic socioeconomic information, and explains the diverse political situations. He focuses primarily on the underlying issues confronting these societies: the legacy of Soviet rule, ethnic tensions, the position of women, the future of Islam, the question of nuclear proliferation, and the fundamental choices over economic strategy, political system, and external orientation that lie ahead.
Author: Weiqing Song
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317672534
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
This book examines, comprehensively, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, the regional organisation which consists of China, Russia and most of the Central Asian countries. It charts the development of the Organisation from the establishment of its precursor, the Shanghai Five, in 1996, through its own foundation in 2001 to the present. It considers the foreign policy of China and of the other member states, showing how the interests and power of the member states determine the Organisation’s institutions, functional development and relations with non-members. It explores the Organisation’s activities in the fields of politics and security co-operation, economic and energy co-operation, and in culture and education, and concludes with a discussion of how the Organisation is likely to develop in future. Throughout, the book sets the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation in the context of China’s overall strategy towards Central Asia.
Author: David R. Harris
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1934536512
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
In Origins of Agriculture in Western Central Asia, archaeologist David R. Harris addresses questions of when, how, and why agriculture and settled village life began east of the Caspian Sea. The book describes and assesses evidence from archaeological investigations in Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Iran, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan in relation to present and past environmental conditions and genetic and archaeological data on the ancestry of the crops and domestic animals of the Neolithic period. It includes accounts of previous research on the prehistoric archaeology of the region and reports the results of a recent environmental-archaeological project undertaken by British, Russian, and Turkmen archaeologists in Turkmenistan, principally at the early Neolithic site of Jeitun (Djeitun) on the southern edge of the Karakum desert. This project has demonstrated unequivocally that agropastoralists who cultivated barley and wheat, raised goats and sheep, hunted wild animals, made stone tools and pottery, and lived in small mudbrick settlements were present in southern Turkmenistan by 7,000 years ago (c. 6,000 BCE calibrated), where they came into contact with hunter-gatherers of the "Keltiminar Culture." It is possible that barley and goats were domesticated locally, but the available archaeological and genetic evidence leads to the conclusion that all or most of the elements of the Neolithic "Jeitun Culture" spread to the region from farther west by a process of demic or cultural diffusion that broadly parallels the spread of Neolithic agropastoralism from southwest Asia into Europe. By synthesizing for the first time what is currently known about the origins of agriculture in a large part of Central Asia, between the more fully investigated regions of southwest Asia and China, this book makes a unique contribution to the worldwide literature on transitions from hunting and gathering to agriculture.
