History of Central Asia (The History of Central Asia)

This item is volume 4 of a four volume set. (It isn't all four volumes.) That said, the quality is outstanding, both materially and in terms of content. I have all 4 four volumes and they are just beautifully produced. Also, in my opinion, you're not going to currently find a better general history of Central Asia written in English than these books. They aren't cheap, but by the time you get through all four of them you will have a really good foundational understand of the region. If you really want to learn about this part of the world, I highly recommend this collection.

So far this vol. maintains the outstanding quality of the first three vols. of the series. I am very glad to own this set and will refer to it for both teaching purposes and for personal pleasure. -- JRG

Christoph Baumer completed his series with a fourth and final volume on Central Asia, covering roughly from the fifteenth century to the present day. The architecture you can still see in places like Uzbekistan was built during this period. Vol. 1 covered prehistory and people who developed the super weapon of the time, the horse drawn chariot. Vol. 2 delved into the culture of the middlemen who handled trade along the Silk Road routes from China to Rome, while Vol. 3 explored the coming of Islam from the west and Genghis Khan’s Mongols from the east. It’s difficult to compete with this earlier history.As with his previous books it is is a lavish production, with in depth research and illustrations displayed in a nearly 400 page glossy 9 x 12 format. Baumer is a specialist in the region’s archeological, artistic and architectural history. He has traveled there extensively and made some major cultural discoveries of his own. The area encompasses the Caucasus mountains in the west to the Xinjiang deserts in the east, the frozen Siberian steppe in the north to the Hindu Kush and Himalaya mountains in the south. Ruins of ghost cities along the Taklamakan and Karakum wastelands bear witness to the passage of time.This volume investigates the Khanates that built Bukhara and Samarkand, and the Great Game between Russia and Britain which vied for influence and control of the passes into India. Timur (Tamerlane), the 14th century scourge of Central Asia and patron of the Persian poet Hafez and the polymath ibn-Khaldun, and Babur, 16th century founder of India’s Islamic Mughal Dynasty both play outsized roles as the descendants of Genghis Khan. Also included is the Soviet period after Lenin in 1917, continuing intrigue with Britain over India and Iran, and the making of a cotton monoculture that drained the Aral Sea.

On July 5, 2009, Uyghurs peacefully assembled in People’s Square in Urumqi to protest government inaction over a deadly attack on June 26 on Uyghur factory workers in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province. The details of what happened that day are unclear, however, what is known is that the city erupted into unrest that resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of people. By using the local governments influence, the Chinese government only reported the number of death of Han Chinese. However, the WUC and other international organisations reported that in the aftermath of unrest in Urumqi on July 5, 2009, the Chinese security forces conducted sweeps of Uyghur neighborhoods in the city arbitrarily detaining Uyghur males. Hundreds were dead and many were forcibly disappeared and to date their whereabouts remain unknown....