This collection of descriptions and analyses from scholars from Central Asia, Xinjiang, Kashmir, and Siberia gives first a general overview about the geopolitics, economics, and politics of the Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgizstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) plus a details description of their foreign policy towards their neighborhood, the region, and the further abroad (Russia, India, China). This is complemented by studies on the relations between Central Asia on the one side and China, India, and Russia on the other hand. Secondly, the history, problems, and pers-pectives of the Central Asian regionalization and trans-regional (SCO, OSCE) process is discussed and evaluated. Third, problems such as Islamism in Central Asia are studied. The book is not only a coherent handbook on Central Asia but presents the views of the academic generation of the newly independent Central Asian countries. It gives a comprehensive overview about foreign policies and Central Asian relations with the big neighbors China, Russia, and India as well as a differentiated discussion on the regionalization process.

For its citizens, contemporary Central Asia is a land of great promise and peril. While the end of Soviet rule has opened new opportunities for social mobility and cultural expression, political and economic dynamics have also imposed severe hardships. In this lively volume, contributors from a variety of disciplines examine how ordinary Central Asians lead their lives and navigate shifting historical and political trends. Provocative stories of Turkmen nomads, Afghan villagers, Kazakh scientists, Kyrgyz border guards, a Tajik strongman, guardians of religious shrines in Uzbekistan, and other narratives illuminate important issues of gender, religion, power, culture, and wealth. A vibrant and dynamic world of life in urban neighborhoods and small villages, at weddings and celebrations, at classroom tables, and around dinner tables emerges from this introduction to a geopolitically strategic and culturally fascinating region.

This atlas brings together a wealth of information related to living and nonliving natural resources in the five countries of Central Asia---Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It contains an array of maps based on geographic information systems and remote sensing images, numerous photographs, tabulations of important data, and extensive descriptive text that together illustrate and describe the region's bountiful natural resources, its diversity of peoples, and their progress toward sustainable development. Highlights include geographic and climatic features; environmental, economic, and social profiles; energy, minerals, and water resources; ecoregions and ecosystems; major fauna and flora; agriculture and fisheries; peoples and cultural traditions; and economic and social statistics.

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.

With the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, a major turning point in all former Soviet republics, Central Asian and Caucasian countries began to reflect on their history and identities. As a consequence of their opening up to the global exchange of ideas, various strains of Islam and trends in Islamic thought have nourished the Islamic revival that had already started in the context of glasnost and perestroika--from Turkey, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, and from the Indian subcontinent; the four regions with strong ties to Central Asian and Caucasian Islam in the years before Soviet occupation. Bayram Balci seeks to analyse how these new Islamic influences have reached local societies and how they have interacted with pre-existing religious belief and practice. Combining exceptional erudition with rare first-hand research, Balci's book provides a sophisticated account of both the internal dynamics and external influences in the evolution of Islam in the region.