Central Asia In Historical Perspective

This book offers readers new insight into those aspects of Central Asia's past that may shape its future. It explores factors that have driven the region's historical development and that continue to define it today: the legacy of Soviet and earlier imperial rule in economic and social relations.

Beatrice Manz

Preface -- Introduction -- Historical Background -- The Shaping of Central Asian Identities and Politics -- The Legacy of the Mongols -- The Symbiosis of Turk and Tajik -- Central Asia as a Part of the Modern Islamic World -- Volga Tatars in Central Asia, 18th-20th Centuries: From Diaspora to Hegemony -- Religion and Ethnic Relations in 20th-Century Central Asia -- Soviet Uzbekistan: State and Nation in Historical Perspective -- Tajiks and the Persian World -- Underdevelopment and Ethnic Relations in Central Asia -- The Influence of Islam in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan -- Central Asia and Russia -- Commensals or Parasites? Russians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and Others in Central Asia -- Post-Soviet Central Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States: The Economic Background of Interdependence