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Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present
This engaging audiobook narrated by Aaqil Ahmed explores how Central Asia 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-18th 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.
PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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-18th 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.
PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Audible Audio
Published June 1, 2021
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September 9, 2022
Only one chapter of this book covers the time period from the Mongol conquests to the mid-18th century. The bulk of this history starts in the mid-18th century, with the Qing expansion westward, and the Russian Empire's expansion further south to the Amu Darya river. The magnificent and ancient Ark of Bukhara gives a slightly misleading impression. Khalid explains:
This is primarily a history of imperial politics, and also of nationalism: of what was once defined as, a long time ago, part of the Russian Empire and the Qing Empire. The history so focuses on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Because the Russian Empire stopped at the Amu Darya, Afghanistan is not included; neither are Mongolia or Tibet because of their substantial differences from the rest of the region. This is still a large and highly populated region -- and Khalid draws from an extensive literature in the citations, with English, Russian, French, Chinese, Uzbek, and other language sources. The result is an extensive "compare and contrast" between Russian and Chinese Central Asia.
The book's wide scale resists summary, but there are some highlights worth noting. Khalid emphasizes the relative regional autonomy of local elites, as well as the relatively fluid transmission of ideas, of cross-border trade, and of political maneuvering. The principle of "extraterritoriality", or exemption from local law which was a characteristic of foreign treaties with Qing China, meant that subjects of those empires were able to operate across borders - Kazakh or Uzbek officials and bureaucrats from the Russian Empire, or Indian officials or traders from the British Raj. Additionally, Khalid claims that the Russian- (later Soviet-) administered region enjoyed a better economic position until quite recently. Cross-border trade and communication only came to a sudden halt in 1962, with the Sino-Soviet split, and only resumed with the later thaw in relations and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The book concludes with a study of the region post-1989: Khalid is ultimately more bullish about the results of later Soviet policy, with the promotion of "national languages", federalism, and investments in infrastructure resulting in the formation of several nation-states after the fall of the Soviet Union. That is not to say that these states have formed uniformly well - with political repression, corruption, and environmental degradation remaining major cross-border issues. That is still a major contrast with Chinese policy over Xinjiang, which he calls, without hedging, a "21st-century gulag" and "cultural genocide".
For this mass of information about a region that I know almost nothing about, I found this to be a deeply readable study: I could reasonably recommend it for a university classroom setting, or for professionals who wish to have more than a basic understanding of the region's history.
At its best, exoticism romanticizes Central Asia and places it beyond the reach of history. At its worst, it can render the region a blank slate on which one can inscribe anything one wishes.
This is primarily a history of imperial politics, and also of nationalism: of what was once defined as, a long time ago, part of the Russian Empire and the Qing Empire. The history so focuses on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Because the Russian Empire stopped at the Amu Darya, Afghanistan is not included; neither are Mongolia or Tibet because of their substantial differences from the rest of the region. This is still a large and highly populated region -- and Khalid draws from an extensive literature in the citations, with English, Russian, French, Chinese, Uzbek, and other language sources. The result is an extensive "compare and contrast" between Russian and Chinese Central Asia.
The book's wide scale resists summary, but there are some highlights worth noting. Khalid emphasizes the relative regional autonomy of local elites, as well as the relatively fluid transmission of ideas, of cross-border trade, and of political maneuvering. The principle of "extraterritoriality", or exemption from local law which was a characteristic of foreign treaties with Qing China, meant that subjects of those empires were able to operate across borders - Kazakh or Uzbek officials and bureaucrats from the Russian Empire, or Indian officials or traders from the British Raj. Additionally, Khalid claims that the Russian- (later Soviet-) administered region enjoyed a better economic position until quite recently. Cross-border trade and communication only came to a sudden halt in 1962, with the Sino-Soviet split, and only resumed with the later thaw in relations and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The book concludes with a study of the region post-1989: Khalid is ultimately more bullish about the results of later Soviet policy, with the promotion of "national languages", federalism, and investments in infrastructure resulting in the formation of several nation-states after the fall of the Soviet Union. That is not to say that these states have formed uniformly well - with political repression, corruption, and environmental degradation remaining major cross-border issues. That is still a major contrast with Chinese policy over Xinjiang, which he calls, without hedging, a "21st-century gulag" and "cultural genocide".
For this mass of information about a region that I know almost nothing about, I found this to be a deeply readable study: I could reasonably recommend it for a university classroom setting, or for professionals who wish to have more than a basic understanding of the region's history.
February 13, 2023
When you get to the end of a non-fiction history book and your first reaction is holding back tears, you know it's a good book. Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present did just that, taking me on an enlightening and emotional journey through Muslim history that made me smile, sigh, and make du'a from one chapter to the next!
This book is one for the committed enthusiasts (and students)! I can't really write a review of a book like this, but I wanted to share my overall impressions. A few years ago, I started a project to read books from a different part of the world each month, as some of you may remember. This was not long before I started my podcast, which ran alongside it. One of the regions I was interested in was Central Asia because it had never featured in any of my schooling and rarely came up incidentally as part of my general knowledge. However, when I started looking for non-fiction books on the region in English, I discovered that they were almost exclusively written by non-Central Asian, non-Muslim Westerners. While I don't believe a book by such a writer is necessarily a problem in itself, I was still disappointed at the lack of variety. So when I came across this book by Adeeb Khalid, a Pakistani-American Muslim academic and respected expert in the field, it grabbed my attention. It was also relevant to my search for works on Uyghur history for my Uyghur Book List, which has similarly yielded few non-Western-authored books, although this has been changing in the last year or two.
At 576 pages (or 17 hours of audiobook), Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present provides a pretty detailed overview of the history of the region starting around 1750 and passing through the Russian Empire and Qing Dynasty, USSR and Chinese Civil War, First and Second World Wars, Cold War, independence of the "Stans", the "War on Terror" all the way to the present that sees a variety of political paths taken in the Central Asian states and the ever increasing domination of the CCP in East Turkestan. Throughout his exploration of these periods and the many changes that occurred, Khalid puts the Central Asian people and, importantly in my opinion, Islam at the centre. This is what I had hoped for when I searched for a writer from a Muslim background, although one can never be sure what to expect. He doesn't tell the Central Asian stories from the Russian or Chinese perspective, but from the perspective of Central Asians in their own right. Further, he doesn't position the Central Asians as victims of their circumstances, neither does he sweep over the crimes of the colonial Soviet and Chinese states and other involved international powers. He portrays the history of both Russian- and Chinese-influenced Central Asia in parallel, avoiding the tendency to separate East Turkestan from the rest of Central Asia. He also introduces us to many individuals - Central Asian and not - who made fateful decisions and firmly situates them and their decisions in their wider contexts, helping the reader to understand why events progressed as they did and continue to do.
In addition to the political history of the region, something that was of particular personal interest to me was his focus on the place of Islam. Khalid shows in detail how Islamic faith and Islamic movements have played a fundamental role in the choices and history of the region, something that I think is often only briefly considered in many history and politics books about the Muslim world. Furthermore, he doesn't romanticise or - for the most part - criminalise these movements, focusing on their beliefs and the impacts they had on decisions. An aspect I found particularly enlightening and inspiring was the discussion of various Islamic scholars and the importance of scholarship in different parts of Central Asia across time. I'm not at all familiar with Central Asian Islamic scholarship in the last two centuries and have struggled somewhat to find books on the topic, especially Uyghur scholarship. This is despite the region's significant role in Islamic scholarship historically as centres of learning and the birthplace of major scholars such as Al-Bukhari and At-Tirmidhi, and scientists including Ibn Sina and Al-Khawarizmi. I found it uplifting and invigorating to learn about the passionate debates around Islam in society, the many many scholars who strove to teach and retain Islam in their societies, the proliferation of study and publication across Central Asia and the links between Islamic scholars and students in the region and in other Muslim societies, all in more recent history.
This book is not for someone with a passing casual interest. Having said that, it is written in a very accessible and empathetic style and organised into logical chapters that make it easy to follow considering the scope and length of the book. Ideally, I would have read this as an ebook so that I could highlight and make notes, but I knew if I did, I would delay reading it to much later. It is also quite a bit more expensive as an ebook or paperback than as an audiobook with Audible. Aaqil Ahmed, the narrator, did a generally good job of narrating; his pronunciation was not always accurate, but that is easily forgiven when it comes to a book involving a number of languages! Given the audio format, I approached it differently, with the expectation that I would forget a lot of the detail but with the hope of starting to get some understanding of the region and the historical context of its state today. I know I have achieved that and much more. As is often the case when learning about history, I also found myself reflecting on similarities between events in Central Asian history and other parts of the world and the patterns that become apparent. Having read this book, I feel I am now in a place to focus on more specific areas of the region, with a decent foundation to build upon.
To close, I think this short quote from an interview with the author (here: https://politicalreflectionmagazine.c...) Adeeb Khalid on his writings about Islam and Central Asia in recent times shows the mindset that he approaches this book with: "I am really a historian, most comfortable in the issues and sources of the first third of the 20th century. I was pulled into the larger sweep of that century by a sense of civic duty—to say something about the misconceptions that are routinely peddled in the public sphere. That is one’s responsibility as a scholar and a citizen and I have been happy to do it".
This book is one for the committed enthusiasts (and students)! I can't really write a review of a book like this, but I wanted to share my overall impressions. A few years ago, I started a project to read books from a different part of the world each month, as some of you may remember. This was not long before I started my podcast, which ran alongside it. One of the regions I was interested in was Central Asia because it had never featured in any of my schooling and rarely came up incidentally as part of my general knowledge. However, when I started looking for non-fiction books on the region in English, I discovered that they were almost exclusively written by non-Central Asian, non-Muslim Westerners. While I don't believe a book by such a writer is necessarily a problem in itself, I was still disappointed at the lack of variety. So when I came across this book by Adeeb Khalid, a Pakistani-American Muslim academic and respected expert in the field, it grabbed my attention. It was also relevant to my search for works on Uyghur history for my Uyghur Book List, which has similarly yielded few non-Western-authored books, although this has been changing in the last year or two.
At 576 pages (or 17 hours of audiobook), Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present provides a pretty detailed overview of the history of the region starting around 1750 and passing through the Russian Empire and Qing Dynasty, USSR and Chinese Civil War, First and Second World Wars, Cold War, independence of the "Stans", the "War on Terror" all the way to the present that sees a variety of political paths taken in the Central Asian states and the ever increasing domination of the CCP in East Turkestan. Throughout his exploration of these periods and the many changes that occurred, Khalid puts the Central Asian people and, importantly in my opinion, Islam at the centre. This is what I had hoped for when I searched for a writer from a Muslim background, although one can never be sure what to expect. He doesn't tell the Central Asian stories from the Russian or Chinese perspective, but from the perspective of Central Asians in their own right. Further, he doesn't position the Central Asians as victims of their circumstances, neither does he sweep over the crimes of the colonial Soviet and Chinese states and other involved international powers. He portrays the history of both Russian- and Chinese-influenced Central Asia in parallel, avoiding the tendency to separate East Turkestan from the rest of Central Asia. He also introduces us to many individuals - Central Asian and not - who made fateful decisions and firmly situates them and their decisions in their wider contexts, helping the reader to understand why events progressed as they did and continue to do.
In addition to the political history of the region, something that was of particular personal interest to me was his focus on the place of Islam. Khalid shows in detail how Islamic faith and Islamic movements have played a fundamental role in the choices and history of the region, something that I think is often only briefly considered in many history and politics books about the Muslim world. Furthermore, he doesn't romanticise or - for the most part - criminalise these movements, focusing on their beliefs and the impacts they had on decisions. An aspect I found particularly enlightening and inspiring was the discussion of various Islamic scholars and the importance of scholarship in different parts of Central Asia across time. I'm not at all familiar with Central Asian Islamic scholarship in the last two centuries and have struggled somewhat to find books on the topic, especially Uyghur scholarship. This is despite the region's significant role in Islamic scholarship historically as centres of learning and the birthplace of major scholars such as Al-Bukhari and At-Tirmidhi, and scientists including Ibn Sina and Al-Khawarizmi. I found it uplifting and invigorating to learn about the passionate debates around Islam in society, the many many scholars who strove to teach and retain Islam in their societies, the proliferation of study and publication across Central Asia and the links between Islamic scholars and students in the region and in other Muslim societies, all in more recent history.
This book is not for someone with a passing casual interest. Having said that, it is written in a very accessible and empathetic style and organised into logical chapters that make it easy to follow considering the scope and length of the book. Ideally, I would have read this as an ebook so that I could highlight and make notes, but I knew if I did, I would delay reading it to much later. It is also quite a bit more expensive as an ebook or paperback than as an audiobook with Audible. Aaqil Ahmed, the narrator, did a generally good job of narrating; his pronunciation was not always accurate, but that is easily forgiven when it comes to a book involving a number of languages! Given the audio format, I approached it differently, with the expectation that I would forget a lot of the detail but with the hope of starting to get some understanding of the region and the historical context of its state today. I know I have achieved that and much more. As is often the case when learning about history, I also found myself reflecting on similarities between events in Central Asian history and other parts of the world and the patterns that become apparent. Having read this book, I feel I am now in a place to focus on more specific areas of the region, with a decent foundation to build upon.
To close, I think this short quote from an interview with the author (here: https://politicalreflectionmagazine.c...) Adeeb Khalid on his writings about Islam and Central Asia in recent times shows the mindset that he approaches this book with: "I am really a historian, most comfortable in the issues and sources of the first third of the 20th century. I was pulled into the larger sweep of that century by a sense of civic duty—to say something about the misconceptions that are routinely peddled in the public sphere. That is one’s responsibility as a scholar and a citizen and I have been happy to do it".
December 6, 2021
Although the book is long—500 pages without notes, index, etc.—and dense, so jam-packed with facts, players and analysis that one might even go so far as to consider it definitive, it is a remarkably easy read
Some topics deserve highlighting. One example is the human and cultural interchange that existed between Russia/Soviet and Chinese Central Asia until the border was sealed in 1962.This book endlessly erudite and fascinating. 4/5 ⭐
Some topics deserve highlighting. One example is the human and cultural interchange that existed between Russia/Soviet and Chinese Central Asia until the border was sealed in 1962.This book endlessly erudite and fascinating. 4/5 ⭐
March 25, 2026
4,5 heel knap om dit allemaal samen te brengen in een behoorlijk leesbaar boek. In feite bijna twee boeken in één, gezien de nogal uiteenlopende paden van ‘Chinees’ Centraal-Azië en ‘Russisch’/Sovjet Centraal-Azië
February 15, 2026
Very approachable and full of detail. The book narrates the history of Eastern and Western Turkestan in a comparative way, sketching out the pre-conquest history and then illustrating how Russian and Chinese rule shaped the two halves of Central Asia.
Most interesting to me was how ideas of nationhood were deliberately shaped from above - first by Jadid nationalists with enlightenment ideas and then by a Soviet Union who encouraged national identity in service of a collective whole. A shared Turkic identity delineated by personal affiliations or nomadic vs sedentary lifestyles transitioned into new categories of “Uzbek,” “Tajik,” “Karalpak” etc. In stark contrast, Uyghur national identity was placed subservient to a Han-dominated Chinese nationalism, leading to the repression today.
Most interesting to me was how ideas of nationhood were deliberately shaped from above - first by Jadid nationalists with enlightenment ideas and then by a Soviet Union who encouraged national identity in service of a collective whole. A shared Turkic identity delineated by personal affiliations or nomadic vs sedentary lifestyles transitioned into new categories of “Uzbek,” “Tajik,” “Karalpak” etc. In stark contrast, Uyghur national identity was placed subservient to a Han-dominated Chinese nationalism, leading to the repression today.
July 19, 2025
Last chapter was a bit hmmmm in some places
May 15, 2026
对中属突厥斯坦的历史已经很熟悉，主要了解俄属突厥斯坦的历史。
August 31, 2024
Good survey, bit lacking on analysis but suitable as an entry point for someone like me
April 11, 2025
A fantastic overview of differing Soviet and Chinese approaches to Central Asian development under their respective socialist projects (the book also includes pre- and post-20th Century narratives). The author's politics can be a little grating at times, but the book gives great credit to, especially Soviet, development success in the region. The descriptions of women's liberation in the Central Asian Soviet Republics are wonderful, as is the small section on the All-Union reconstruction efforts in Tashkent following the 1966 earthquake (Tashkent was the fourth largest city in the USSR!). I couldn't help but mourn what has been lost.
Like a number of recent scholarly works on the Maoist period, the details of the Chinese approach to Sino-Soviet relations and the undercurrent of Chinese (Han) nationalism in Chinese revolutionary political, developmental and cultural policy is very enlightening. The last section, on the post-Soviet experience in the former Central Asian socialist republics, is immensely depressing; Deng and post-Deng Xinjiang economic, cultural and political development a small (relative) glimmer of positivity in an otherwise very sad scene.
Like a number of recent scholarly works on the Maoist period, the details of the Chinese approach to Sino-Soviet relations and the undercurrent of Chinese (Han) nationalism in Chinese revolutionary political, developmental and cultural policy is very enlightening. The last section, on the post-Soviet experience in the former Central Asian socialist republics, is immensely depressing; Deng and post-Deng Xinjiang economic, cultural and political development a small (relative) glimmer of positivity in an otherwise very sad scene.
December 3, 2025
This was a book well worth reading. If you’ve read and appreciated The Silk Roads, this should be the next one on your list. It’s factual and well-paced, and it covers a long period of history, explaining the peoples of Central Asia and all the states that have existed there over time—meticulously and in detail.
The medieval section of the book felt a bit like reading a fantasy novel, especially for a reader not too familiar with the region’s history. It was all about kingdoms you’d never heard of in a land that’s hard to imagine. But as the narrative moved closer to the era of Russian imperial conquests, things started to become clearer for me, as it began to build on knowledge I already had.
I will definitely reread this one a couple more times.
The medieval section of the book felt a bit like reading a fantasy novel, especially for a reader not too familiar with the region’s history. It was all about kingdoms you’d never heard of in a land that’s hard to imagine. But as the narrative moved closer to the era of Russian imperial conquests, things started to become clearer for me, as it began to build on knowledge I already had.
I will definitely reread this one a couple more times.
June 26, 2026
From its complex past to its place in the modern world, the author presents Central Asia as a dynamic crossroads of cultures, empires, and political ideas, challenging assumptions and placing Central Asia at the centre of our global history rather than on its margins.
The narrative is steeped in historical detail, political developments, and unfamiliar names, which occasionally makes it difficult to follow.
While it may not be the easiest or most captivating history book to read, it provides an informative and nuanced overview of a fascinating region whose importance is often underestimated.
The narrative is steeped in historical detail, political developments, and unfamiliar names, which occasionally makes it difficult to follow.
While it may not be the easiest or most captivating history book to read, it provides an informative and nuanced overview of a fascinating region whose importance is often underestimated.
December 29, 2024
The breadth of Khalid’s knowledge is truly impressive and his methodology of contrasting the histories of Russian and Chinese imperialism in Central Asia serves as an extremely engaging vehicle for illuminating the modern history of the region. Khalid narrates from the perspective of Central Asians themselves, looking outward toward the imperial Russian and Chinese metropoles, rather than from the metropoles looking inward toward the Central Asian colony. He does this very well, though it can be hard to do, even when the author is a critic of the imperial order.
Having just finished the book, some topics which really stood out include:
1) Langston Hughes’s visit to and perception of Soviet Central Asia as compared to the American south.
2) A better understanding of the pace and timing of Chinese and Russian conquest in Central Asia.
3) The later 19th and early 20th century Jadid movement as developing notions of Central Asian nationhood and the degree to which these views were applied during the Soviet division of Central Asia into republics, even as the Jadids were persecuted in the Soviet 1920s.
4) The Second World War as fostering the previously weak Soviet national identity in Central Asia.
5) The historically close ties between Western Central Asia and East Turkestan, what is now legally Xinjiang. Despite East Turkestan being a subject of the Chinese Empire + Republic, it fostered closer cultural and economic ties to Central Asia and even Russia until the Communist revolution.
6) An account of the Chinese state’s relationship to the people of Turkic cultures in its Xinjiang province and the recent history that developed into the repressive situation that exists there now.
Having just finished the book, some topics which really stood out include:
1) Langston Hughes’s visit to and perception of Soviet Central Asia as compared to the American south.
2) A better understanding of the pace and timing of Chinese and Russian conquest in Central Asia.
3) The later 19th and early 20th century Jadid movement as developing notions of Central Asian nationhood and the degree to which these views were applied during the Soviet division of Central Asia into republics, even as the Jadids were persecuted in the Soviet 1920s.
4) The Second World War as fostering the previously weak Soviet national identity in Central Asia.
5) The historically close ties between Western Central Asia and East Turkestan, what is now legally Xinjiang. Despite East Turkestan being a subject of the Chinese Empire + Republic, it fostered closer cultural and economic ties to Central Asia and even Russia until the Communist revolution.
6) An account of the Chinese state’s relationship to the people of Turkic cultures in its Xinjiang province and the recent history that developed into the repressive situation that exists there now.
December 17, 2021
An in-depth yet approachable modern history that details the period from the imperial conquests by the Russian empire on one hand and China on the other, through the present day.
As someone without a background in Central Asia, I found the book to be quite informative while presenting a clear narrative through line. I think that the author demonstrates both the larger historical forces (political, economic, religious) that were at play throughout the time period, as well as the distinctness of differing parts of the region.
The book shows how Central Asia is not a monolith, nor are common tropes about communism, Islam or remoteness generally applicable. While I found this to be accessible, there is also much to offer a more expert reader with significant research and thorough detail.
As someone without a background in Central Asia, I found the book to be quite informative while presenting a clear narrative through line. I think that the author demonstrates both the larger historical forces (political, economic, religious) that were at play throughout the time period, as well as the distinctness of differing parts of the region.
The book shows how Central Asia is not a monolith, nor are common tropes about communism, Islam or remoteness generally applicable. While I found this to be accessible, there is also much to offer a more expert reader with significant research and thorough detail.
August 28, 2023
So mf true Adeeb
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2025
Learned a lot, really readable and extremely useful background reading if you're visiting the area and are curious for more background. Well-researched while staying accessible.
August 11, 2025
4.25
for a survey this was super fun and genuinely informative
for a survey this was super fun and genuinely informative
May 1, 2025
Really good but insanely in depth. You’ve been warned.
June 4, 2025
Very well written and the perfect amount of detail. I was not expecting for the Uyghurs to be included in this book, but they make up a sizeable portion, and were a very good addition that adds further depth to our definitions of ‘central asia’. This is simply what well written popular history looks like.
notes I made:
“It is important to remember that in this age, being Muslim was a matter of belonging to a community that was innately Muslim, not a matter of individual belief. What Islam meant in communal life was always open to interpretation and hence con-testation. The social and political effects of Islam were always a matter of struggle between different forces. It was the ever-shifting relations between those who wielded political power and those who possessed the authority to interpret Islam-the scholars (ulama, "the learned") and the Sufis-that determined what Islam meant at a given historical moment.“
When the russian empire attempted to imperialise kazakhstan throughout the eighteenth century, the Kazakhs were eventually brought to heel, and the land usage altered by the arrival of russian peasant settlements. Settlement of common communities on foreign land is a clear enforcement of colonial/imperialistic policy. In Kazakhstan’s case, peasant settlement disrupted the nomadic way of life, forcing locals into servitude.
“Finally, the Russian empire did not rule on behalf of the Russians
—no such category officially existed until late in the nineteenth
century. Ethnic Russians did not enjoy any privileges as a result of being Russian. Most Russians were in fact serfs until emancipation in 1861, while serfdom did not exist outside the Slavic heartland of the empire. Rather, the empire was run by a multi-national noble elite that served the dynasty. The elites of each new territory could be inducted into the Russian imperial nobil-ity, which in addition to Russians included Baltic Germans, Poles, Georgians, Ukrainians, and not a few Tatars and Bashkirs. Loyalty to the dynasty, not ethnic belonging, was the key here.”
According to the author, ‘The great game’ is an exaggeration, and ‘Britain’s primary concern was the defence of India, not territorial conquest in Central Asia.’
Under both the Qing and Russian empires, heterogeneity was taken as a given, and ‘the point was to manage difference rather than to enforce homogeneity.’ ‘In both empires, Central Asian territories remained distinctive.’
Islam was deemed synonymous with fanaticism in Russian Turkestan, which predisposed an irrational hatred of the conquerors. Nomads were scene as too primitive to be a threat, and efforts were taken to prevent their islamisation.
The Qing control over Xinjiang was weak at the end of their rule, and so the region’s primary benefactor was the Russians, specifically Turkestan. What this meant was that effectively, it was a Russian colony more than a Chinese one, as their culture and trade was dominated by the Russians.
It was an interesting quirk of islam during the colonial age that it was generally viewed among islamic communities that all rulers could be seen as legitimate as long as they didn’t encroach on the Shariah. In this way colonial authorities were often accepted and most of the world’s islamic communities were colonised.
It is fundamental to all post-Qing chinese states, that China is a collective of Zhonghua people (a union of Han, Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan and Muslim). It is important to note that this is not indicative of equality or unity, but belonging. All of these people exist under and belong to the state. “The idea of the essential unity of the state, the inviolability of its frontiers, and the inalienability of its territory has been the lodestar for all Chinese elites, regardless of their political leanings, in the century since the Xinhai revolution.” Because of the state’s insistence on this, Mongolia was only recognised as in independent state by China in 1949. This idea of the unity of the five races was, however, a Han project, and the other four were not consulted or involved in the ruling and maintenance of China. Due to the Mongolian and Tibetan calls for independence as well as the appeal to Turkism in Xinjiang, it is clear that this notion of inviolable unity is a colonial imposition by the Han.
The Great War killed empire in Western Turkestan. Refugee crises, subsequent food shortages and conscription led to a rebellion across all of the region, including the steppe. Russian retribution was brutal, with large swathes of land cleansed of Kazakh and Kyrgyz populations before being given to Russian settlers. A quarter of a million nomads fled to Xinjiang, a deadly trek, that only led to squalor and starvation. Russian loses in all were given at 2246. The local fatalities were somewhere between 40,000-100,000. It was the first revolt in the collapse of the Russian Empire, but brutality kept Russian rule in the area. Even when the Empire collapsed, the bloodshed persisted into the revolution.
The delimitation of central asia by Stalin gave the region its borders and nations it has today. It was done mostly through administrative reasoning, with distinctions in language and culture being crucial factors with which to aid in this. There was also evidence of factionalism in the region that helped to aid in this partition. It was by no means an arbitrary decision and was not made in order to divide the central asian peoples further. It is seen that the modern nations that currently exist in Central Asia came to be due to the efforts of the individuals within each republic, their activism and arguments, not the arbitrary decision of the Bolsheviks, although they did have final say.
As a part of the self-enacted period of nationalisation, standardised written languages started to be developed among communities for the first time, helping to further delineate the essence of each nation that was forming. The Russians had tried to create ethnic distinctions between the people, but this had failed. Much of these national identities followed from a sense of descendence from bygone heroes and historical figures. It is through such methods that the national sense of Uyghur came to first come to be used in the 1920s, before which the Kashgaris and inhabitants of Xinjiang had not utilised it.
One of the early acts if the Soviets after the forming of the republics was the de-islamisation of society, the effect of which completely shifted the patterns of authority for the rest of the 20th century. A clear example is the removal of the veil for women, designed to institute them into the work force and wider society. They wished the creation of a fully rational society, and the suppression of opposition. The Jadids were purged. This period was not easily taken, and unveiled women in Uzbekistan suffered immense acts of brutality.
Collectivisation was enforced by the Soviets, with people having to farm cash crops for the state for the first time. There proper infrastructure and technology did not exist in the region and the whole process was generally mismanaged. The disastrous famine that followed effectively killed the viability of nomadism in Kazakhstan. The famine was devastating and the destitution hit the Kazakhs hard, who fled to Xinjiang and Tashkent, being shot by border guards and bringing nothing but disease. They were seen as pariahs who were responsible for their own demise, and cases of child-abandonment and cannibalisation followed. 1.5 million people died in Kazakhstan and another 1.1 million had left, making kazakhs a minority in their own country - they accounted for 90% of the victims.
The soviets began hermetically sealing the borders, stemming the flow of ideas from the muslim world in the late 1920s. Furthermore, as the theoretics of the infrastructure meant that nothing should be going wrong with the running of the republics, any failures in mechanisation or inability to meet quota was viewed as the work of saboteurs, and a european political police free from any oversight and and the gulag system began to be instituted.
Stalin lost interest in the anti-colonial dreams of the 1920s and relegated central asia’s role to that of a cotton supplier. The only significant development effort was the Fergana canal, echoing the old tsarist regime’s colonial order.
According to Stalin, “The Soviet Union was now not just a union of national republics but the living embodiment of the friendship of peoples. All of the more than a hundred officially recognized nationalities lived inperpetual friendship. They were committed to the same goals and trod the same path to make the same progress. Some nations were farther along the path than others, but otherwise the differences between them were ones of culture-language, dress, and cuisine-rather than anything more significant. As the different nations became modern and socialist, their cultures would also change but remain national. The Stalinist understanding of nations took for granted that differences among them were rooted in something real (“objective”) that would never completely disappear. Each Soviet nation would acquire a culture that was national in form and socialist in content.” Russian, however, as a culture and language came to hold dominance as a ‘big-brother’, and narratives of conquest under the imperial order began to be scrubber from history.
In Kashgar, for a short period a doomed state existed called the ETR. The age in which it was founded was inopportune, but what it represents is dangerous to the Chinese, who would rather it be forgotten. For Uyghurs it exists as a failed attempt at national statehood, and a symbol of self-assertion.
Sheng, the ruler of Xinjiang, allied himself closely with Stalin to his own benefit, effectively making the region a soviet satellite.
The use of Central Asian in the second world war, where they fought alongside men of all soviet nationalities“brought the soviet union to central asia, and made central asians soviet.”
The Ulama had some semblance of authority reinstituted to them at the onset of the second world war, for their assistance in the proclamation of a jihad against the Nazis. They remained loyal to the Stalinist state, despite their sufferings the previous decade and a half, because of their fundamental faith in the necessity of order, the same faith that had allowed them to accept the Tsarist rule.
“Over the course of the war, the Soviet army called up 1.5 million people from Uzbekistan out of a population of 6.5 million. Some 500,000 never returned.
Kazakhstan, where the horrors of the collectivization famine were very recent, yielded 1.2 million soldiers, of whom approximately 450,000 were ethnic Kazakhs. By the time the war ended, an estimated 314,000 people of Central Asian nationalities had lost their lives in combat.”
Alarmed by the initial rapid advance of the Nazis, much of the state infrastructure was evacuated inland. 200,000 orphans arrived in Tashkent. But most significantly, 300 factories were established in Kazakhstan, before which, industrialisation had been very light.
Central Asians were held as POWs in nazi concentration camps and many were executed under suspicion of being jews as they were circumcised. At the same time, a ‘Turkestan Legion’ was formed to turn them against the Russians and the Red Army. Somewhere between 110,000-180,000 men served.
“Common sacrifice and struggle became the primary locus for Central Asians' entry into full-fledged Soviet citizen-ship. Participation in the war worked at the level of individual lived experience and became the most common trope in Soviet public discourse for asserting common citizenship for Central Asians. Down to the end of the Soviet period, service and sacrifice in the war remained the foremost form of asserting a common Soviet identity for the country's multinational population.“
Post ww2, the soviet union experienced great deportations of entire communities, in order to excise harmful elements of the state and, by putting them to useful labour, give them a chance at redemption. Central Asia was the main dumping ground. In 1937 almost 172,000 Soviet Koreans had been forcibly resettled in Central Asia. This also served to perversely reinforce senses of Soviet identity in Central Asia, as people who felt they had sacrificed for the motherland during the war, were made to live alongside ‘traitors’, creating a sense of pride and otherness.
Khrushchev initiaed the virgins land campaign, in which 300,000 russians and ukranians settled in Kazakhstan to grow crops. By 1959 Slavs made up 52% of the population while Kazakhs made up only 30%. This shift was also the result of the dissolution of the gulag system, which resulted in Karaganda, a notorious gulag, becoming Kazakhstan’s second city.
Many dams were constructed in the post-war soviet central Asia which completely transformed the industry of the region. The region was finally receiving greater investment. It was a moment of decolonisation.
Brezhnev’s rule was a golden age for central Asia, where the economy grew, standards of living rose and central asians identified with the soviet state as never before.
Cotton became the central focus of the region. Uzbekistan aline began producing more cotton than the entirety of the US. However, the system by which it was produced and paid for bore great resemblance to cotton plantations of America’s past. It was not an adequate balance of reward to input given in. In regard to cotton, central asia remained a colony. But Central Asians were now fully fledged soviet citizens, with all the responsibilities and rights that bore.
Urbanisation of the rural population was comparatively small in central asia. The europeans remained in the cities, and so the divide between the two was maintained. Natives tended to work in agriculture and service sectors while the europeans dominated heavy industry and technical fields.
By the 1980s, the golden age was over and the economy stagnated. Infant mortality increased and the over-irrigation needed for the cotton crop had run the rivers dry. The aral sea dried up. The regional climate changed, becoming hotter and dust storms of unprecedented intensity began. The pollutants that had been pumped into the sea began to be exposed, and they began raining down in the population causing illness and birth defects
Islam in the soviet period was tolerated and seen as an unavoidable fact, but itself was contradictory. So it came to be the women in the home often represented Islamism for the rest of the community, while the men remained soviet. Many people were concerned about the maintenance of islamic values and it was often seen as a feature of national heritage, so while there existed a handful os sanctioned institutions for islamic teaching, many more emerged in secret, which was largely tolerated.
Fundamental to CCP theory is the idea that china is a unified state with historically defined borders. However, the owners and rulers of this state are the Han chinese. Minority groups live within, but do not hold claim to any of its territory. Therefore the Uyghurs, despite being a majority ethnic group in Xinjiang, are still considered minorities and so cannot have autonomy.
Therefore cultural revolution in Xinjiang took the form of anti-islamic attacks by Han youth. It involved Koran burning and such denigration as forcing people to eat pork and continued well into the 1970s, when the after the political turmoil had stopped. Uyghurs became almost entirely absent from cadre ranks, resulting in nationality becoming absent from policy.
The post-Mao era was something of a golden age for Uyghur culture and the CCP made many efforts to its benefit.
In the cold-war struggle for hegemony among the decolonising wirld, central asia was a model for the soviet camp, shown off to the world as an example of its successes.
With the collapse of the soviet union, the soviet elites largely managed to survive, becoming elected in their respective countries in most cases. Islamism was on the rise, and seen as the predominant threat to the region, and to the established world order, especially with Afghanistan being the main spot for its idealogical development. Islamic insurgency was on the rise, and the war on terrorism was utilised as justification for authoritarian crackdowns. Each state now has its own Islamic institutions, and any activity independent of these institutions is by definition illegal.
With the dissolution of the soviet union, the ccp could safely industrialise Xinjiang, without fear of soviet invasion. The resulting infrastructural development has connected the region to central China like never before, without affording similar equitability to its people. The Uyghurs are still perceived as an exotic minority community, and are accordingly afforded none of the rights and recognitions of a common human community. Following from the ccp’s territorial policy, the country’s definitive borders and the land’s ownership under all Han, the ccp has started offering incentives for Han settlement within Xinjiang, the argument going that as Xinjiang is indefatigably chinese, Han have equal claim over its land as any Uyghur. These settlers come with a messianic mentality that they are lifting a backwards society into modernity, and make no efforts to recognise or assimilate to local practices.
In the authoritarian states of central asia, corruption is integral to the economy. All businesses pay kickbacks up, and all corruption is allowed as long as some of the money ends up going up. The largest businesses are owned by government officials, and much of the most valuable resources are state controlled. This, however, is only an essential component of the global order, as the elites spread their funds in the new globalised world in offshore banks and foreign real estate.
The ccp have utilised the US’ war on terror and the lack of definitivity to the term ‘terrorist’ to justify brutal crackdowns on Uyghur dissent. Any observance of Islam is synonymous with extremism. The reeducation system that began in 2016 is a modern day gulag which holds over 10% of the muslim population of Xinjiang. These camps entail intesnive political indoctrination, with all instruction in Chinese, where inmates sing songs in praise of China and the CCP and thank Xi for their daily bread, all whilst suffering sexual assault and torture. The violence that has previously occurred in Xinjiang has everything to do with repression, and nothing to do with Islamic extremism. Yet, the Islamophobia of the ccp seen in their list of actions deemed as ‘extremism’, including having an ‘irregular beard’, not drinking alcohol, encouraging the use of the burkha, even having too many children and travel to or having relatives in any of 26 ‘sensitive states’, almost all of which are predominantly muslim. As much as one milliom Han have been placed in Uyghur homes as ‘big brothers’ to monitor and report on their practices, and encourage the party line of sinicisation. Many historic mosques have been deemed unsafe and destroyed. Those that remain are required to hoist the chinese flag, and in place of Islamic inscriptions place red banners with party slogans. Cemeteries have been bulldozed and replaced by car parks. The detainees of the camps have since been transported to forced labour factories, which amongst other things, makes islamic ritual impossible. There are credible reports of Uyghur women being sterilised and fears of organ harvesting. The high-tech totalitarianism and surveillance state in Xinjiang is driven by cultural genocide, but is also a trial run for the dictatorial market of the world. Urumqi held shows for facial recognition technology which were visited by over 100 countries, including the US, France and Israel.
notes I made:
“It is important to remember that in this age, being Muslim was a matter of belonging to a community that was innately Muslim, not a matter of individual belief. What Islam meant in communal life was always open to interpretation and hence con-testation. The social and political effects of Islam were always a matter of struggle between different forces. It was the ever-shifting relations between those who wielded political power and those who possessed the authority to interpret Islam-the scholars (ulama, "the learned") and the Sufis-that determined what Islam meant at a given historical moment.“
When the russian empire attempted to imperialise kazakhstan throughout the eighteenth century, the Kazakhs were eventually brought to heel, and the land usage altered by the arrival of russian peasant settlements. Settlement of common communities on foreign land is a clear enforcement of colonial/imperialistic policy. In Kazakhstan’s case, peasant settlement disrupted the nomadic way of life, forcing locals into servitude.
“Finally, the Russian empire did not rule on behalf of the Russians
—no such category officially existed until late in the nineteenth
century. Ethnic Russians did not enjoy any privileges as a result of being Russian. Most Russians were in fact serfs until emancipation in 1861, while serfdom did not exist outside the Slavic heartland of the empire. Rather, the empire was run by a multi-national noble elite that served the dynasty. The elites of each new territory could be inducted into the Russian imperial nobil-ity, which in addition to Russians included Baltic Germans, Poles, Georgians, Ukrainians, and not a few Tatars and Bashkirs. Loyalty to the dynasty, not ethnic belonging, was the key here.”
According to the author, ‘The great game’ is an exaggeration, and ‘Britain’s primary concern was the defence of India, not territorial conquest in Central Asia.’
Under both the Qing and Russian empires, heterogeneity was taken as a given, and ‘the point was to manage difference rather than to enforce homogeneity.’ ‘In both empires, Central Asian territories remained distinctive.’
Islam was deemed synonymous with fanaticism in Russian Turkestan, which predisposed an irrational hatred of the conquerors. Nomads were scene as too primitive to be a threat, and efforts were taken to prevent their islamisation.
The Qing control over Xinjiang was weak at the end of their rule, and so the region’s primary benefactor was the Russians, specifically Turkestan. What this meant was that effectively, it was a Russian colony more than a Chinese one, as their culture and trade was dominated by the Russians.
It was an interesting quirk of islam during the colonial age that it was generally viewed among islamic communities that all rulers could be seen as legitimate as long as they didn’t encroach on the Shariah. In this way colonial authorities were often accepted and most of the world’s islamic communities were colonised.
It is fundamental to all post-Qing chinese states, that China is a collective of Zhonghua people (a union of Han, Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan and Muslim). It is important to note that this is not indicative of equality or unity, but belonging. All of these people exist under and belong to the state. “The idea of the essential unity of the state, the inviolability of its frontiers, and the inalienability of its territory has been the lodestar for all Chinese elites, regardless of their political leanings, in the century since the Xinhai revolution.” Because of the state’s insistence on this, Mongolia was only recognised as in independent state by China in 1949. This idea of the unity of the five races was, however, a Han project, and the other four were not consulted or involved in the ruling and maintenance of China. Due to the Mongolian and Tibetan calls for independence as well as the appeal to Turkism in Xinjiang, it is clear that this notion of inviolable unity is a colonial imposition by the Han.
The Great War killed empire in Western Turkestan. Refugee crises, subsequent food shortages and conscription led to a rebellion across all of the region, including the steppe. Russian retribution was brutal, with large swathes of land cleansed of Kazakh and Kyrgyz populations before being given to Russian settlers. A quarter of a million nomads fled to Xinjiang, a deadly trek, that only led to squalor and starvation. Russian loses in all were given at 2246. The local fatalities were somewhere between 40,000-100,000. It was the first revolt in the collapse of the Russian Empire, but brutality kept Russian rule in the area. Even when the Empire collapsed, the bloodshed persisted into the revolution.
The delimitation of central asia by Stalin gave the region its borders and nations it has today. It was done mostly through administrative reasoning, with distinctions in language and culture being crucial factors with which to aid in this. There was also evidence of factionalism in the region that helped to aid in this partition. It was by no means an arbitrary decision and was not made in order to divide the central asian peoples further. It is seen that the modern nations that currently exist in Central Asia came to be due to the efforts of the individuals within each republic, their activism and arguments, not the arbitrary decision of the Bolsheviks, although they did have final say.
As a part of the self-enacted period of nationalisation, standardised written languages started to be developed among communities for the first time, helping to further delineate the essence of each nation that was forming. The Russians had tried to create ethnic distinctions between the people, but this had failed. Much of these national identities followed from a sense of descendence from bygone heroes and historical figures. It is through such methods that the national sense of Uyghur came to first come to be used in the 1920s, before which the Kashgaris and inhabitants of Xinjiang had not utilised it.
One of the early acts if the Soviets after the forming of the republics was the de-islamisation of society, the effect of which completely shifted the patterns of authority for the rest of the 20th century. A clear example is the removal of the veil for women, designed to institute them into the work force and wider society. They wished the creation of a fully rational society, and the suppression of opposition. The Jadids were purged. This period was not easily taken, and unveiled women in Uzbekistan suffered immense acts of brutality.
Collectivisation was enforced by the Soviets, with people having to farm cash crops for the state for the first time. There proper infrastructure and technology did not exist in the region and the whole process was generally mismanaged. The disastrous famine that followed effectively killed the viability of nomadism in Kazakhstan. The famine was devastating and the destitution hit the Kazakhs hard, who fled to Xinjiang and Tashkent, being shot by border guards and bringing nothing but disease. They were seen as pariahs who were responsible for their own demise, and cases of child-abandonment and cannibalisation followed. 1.5 million people died in Kazakhstan and another 1.1 million had left, making kazakhs a minority in their own country - they accounted for 90% of the victims.
The soviets began hermetically sealing the borders, stemming the flow of ideas from the muslim world in the late 1920s. Furthermore, as the theoretics of the infrastructure meant that nothing should be going wrong with the running of the republics, any failures in mechanisation or inability to meet quota was viewed as the work of saboteurs, and a european political police free from any oversight and and the gulag system began to be instituted.
Stalin lost interest in the anti-colonial dreams of the 1920s and relegated central asia’s role to that of a cotton supplier. The only significant development effort was the Fergana canal, echoing the old tsarist regime’s colonial order.
According to Stalin, “The Soviet Union was now not just a union of national republics but the living embodiment of the friendship of peoples. All of the more than a hundred officially recognized nationalities lived inperpetual friendship. They were committed to the same goals and trod the same path to make the same progress. Some nations were farther along the path than others, but otherwise the differences between them were ones of culture-language, dress, and cuisine-rather than anything more significant. As the different nations became modern and socialist, their cultures would also change but remain national. The Stalinist understanding of nations took for granted that differences among them were rooted in something real (“objective”) that would never completely disappear. Each Soviet nation would acquire a culture that was national in form and socialist in content.” Russian, however, as a culture and language came to hold dominance as a ‘big-brother’, and narratives of conquest under the imperial order began to be scrubber from history.
In Kashgar, for a short period a doomed state existed called the ETR. The age in which it was founded was inopportune, but what it represents is dangerous to the Chinese, who would rather it be forgotten. For Uyghurs it exists as a failed attempt at national statehood, and a symbol of self-assertion.
Sheng, the ruler of Xinjiang, allied himself closely with Stalin to his own benefit, effectively making the region a soviet satellite.
The use of Central Asian in the second world war, where they fought alongside men of all soviet nationalities“brought the soviet union to central asia, and made central asians soviet.”
The Ulama had some semblance of authority reinstituted to them at the onset of the second world war, for their assistance in the proclamation of a jihad against the Nazis. They remained loyal to the Stalinist state, despite their sufferings the previous decade and a half, because of their fundamental faith in the necessity of order, the same faith that had allowed them to accept the Tsarist rule.
“Over the course of the war, the Soviet army called up 1.5 million people from Uzbekistan out of a population of 6.5 million. Some 500,000 never returned.
Kazakhstan, where the horrors of the collectivization famine were very recent, yielded 1.2 million soldiers, of whom approximately 450,000 were ethnic Kazakhs. By the time the war ended, an estimated 314,000 people of Central Asian nationalities had lost their lives in combat.”
Alarmed by the initial rapid advance of the Nazis, much of the state infrastructure was evacuated inland. 200,000 orphans arrived in Tashkent. But most significantly, 300 factories were established in Kazakhstan, before which, industrialisation had been very light.
Central Asians were held as POWs in nazi concentration camps and many were executed under suspicion of being jews as they were circumcised. At the same time, a ‘Turkestan Legion’ was formed to turn them against the Russians and the Red Army. Somewhere between 110,000-180,000 men served.
“Common sacrifice and struggle became the primary locus for Central Asians' entry into full-fledged Soviet citizen-ship. Participation in the war worked at the level of individual lived experience and became the most common trope in Soviet public discourse for asserting common citizenship for Central Asians. Down to the end of the Soviet period, service and sacrifice in the war remained the foremost form of asserting a common Soviet identity for the country's multinational population.“
Post ww2, the soviet union experienced great deportations of entire communities, in order to excise harmful elements of the state and, by putting them to useful labour, give them a chance at redemption. Central Asia was the main dumping ground. In 1937 almost 172,000 Soviet Koreans had been forcibly resettled in Central Asia. This also served to perversely reinforce senses of Soviet identity in Central Asia, as people who felt they had sacrificed for the motherland during the war, were made to live alongside ‘traitors’, creating a sense of pride and otherness.
Khrushchev initiaed the virgins land campaign, in which 300,000 russians and ukranians settled in Kazakhstan to grow crops. By 1959 Slavs made up 52% of the population while Kazakhs made up only 30%. This shift was also the result of the dissolution of the gulag system, which resulted in Karaganda, a notorious gulag, becoming Kazakhstan’s second city.
Many dams were constructed in the post-war soviet central Asia which completely transformed the industry of the region. The region was finally receiving greater investment. It was a moment of decolonisation.
Brezhnev’s rule was a golden age for central Asia, where the economy grew, standards of living rose and central asians identified with the soviet state as never before.
Cotton became the central focus of the region. Uzbekistan aline began producing more cotton than the entirety of the US. However, the system by which it was produced and paid for bore great resemblance to cotton plantations of America’s past. It was not an adequate balance of reward to input given in. In regard to cotton, central asia remained a colony. But Central Asians were now fully fledged soviet citizens, with all the responsibilities and rights that bore.
Urbanisation of the rural population was comparatively small in central asia. The europeans remained in the cities, and so the divide between the two was maintained. Natives tended to work in agriculture and service sectors while the europeans dominated heavy industry and technical fields.
By the 1980s, the golden age was over and the economy stagnated. Infant mortality increased and the over-irrigation needed for the cotton crop had run the rivers dry. The aral sea dried up. The regional climate changed, becoming hotter and dust storms of unprecedented intensity began. The pollutants that had been pumped into the sea began to be exposed, and they began raining down in the population causing illness and birth defects
Islam in the soviet period was tolerated and seen as an unavoidable fact, but itself was contradictory. So it came to be the women in the home often represented Islamism for the rest of the community, while the men remained soviet. Many people were concerned about the maintenance of islamic values and it was often seen as a feature of national heritage, so while there existed a handful os sanctioned institutions for islamic teaching, many more emerged in secret, which was largely tolerated.
Fundamental to CCP theory is the idea that china is a unified state with historically defined borders. However, the owners and rulers of this state are the Han chinese. Minority groups live within, but do not hold claim to any of its territory. Therefore the Uyghurs, despite being a majority ethnic group in Xinjiang, are still considered minorities and so cannot have autonomy.
Therefore cultural revolution in Xinjiang took the form of anti-islamic attacks by Han youth. It involved Koran burning and such denigration as forcing people to eat pork and continued well into the 1970s, when the after the political turmoil had stopped. Uyghurs became almost entirely absent from cadre ranks, resulting in nationality becoming absent from policy.
The post-Mao era was something of a golden age for Uyghur culture and the CCP made many efforts to its benefit.
In the cold-war struggle for hegemony among the decolonising wirld, central asia was a model for the soviet camp, shown off to the world as an example of its successes.
With the collapse of the soviet union, the soviet elites largely managed to survive, becoming elected in their respective countries in most cases. Islamism was on the rise, and seen as the predominant threat to the region, and to the established world order, especially with Afghanistan being the main spot for its idealogical development. Islamic insurgency was on the rise, and the war on terrorism was utilised as justification for authoritarian crackdowns. Each state now has its own Islamic institutions, and any activity independent of these institutions is by definition illegal.
With the dissolution of the soviet union, the ccp could safely industrialise Xinjiang, without fear of soviet invasion. The resulting infrastructural development has connected the region to central China like never before, without affording similar equitability to its people. The Uyghurs are still perceived as an exotic minority community, and are accordingly afforded none of the rights and recognitions of a common human community. Following from the ccp’s territorial policy, the country’s definitive borders and the land’s ownership under all Han, the ccp has started offering incentives for Han settlement within Xinjiang, the argument going that as Xinjiang is indefatigably chinese, Han have equal claim over its land as any Uyghur. These settlers come with a messianic mentality that they are lifting a backwards society into modernity, and make no efforts to recognise or assimilate to local practices.
In the authoritarian states of central asia, corruption is integral to the economy. All businesses pay kickbacks up, and all corruption is allowed as long as some of the money ends up going up. The largest businesses are owned by government officials, and much of the most valuable resources are state controlled. This, however, is only an essential component of the global order, as the elites spread their funds in the new globalised world in offshore banks and foreign real estate.
The ccp have utilised the US’ war on terror and the lack of definitivity to the term ‘terrorist’ to justify brutal crackdowns on Uyghur dissent. Any observance of Islam is synonymous with extremism. The reeducation system that began in 2016 is a modern day gulag which holds over 10% of the muslim population of Xinjiang. These camps entail intesnive political indoctrination, with all instruction in Chinese, where inmates sing songs in praise of China and the CCP and thank Xi for their daily bread, all whilst suffering sexual assault and torture. The violence that has previously occurred in Xinjiang has everything to do with repression, and nothing to do with Islamic extremism. Yet, the Islamophobia of the ccp seen in their list of actions deemed as ‘extremism’, including having an ‘irregular beard’, not drinking alcohol, encouraging the use of the burkha, even having too many children and travel to or having relatives in any of 26 ‘sensitive states’, almost all of which are predominantly muslim. As much as one milliom Han have been placed in Uyghur homes as ‘big brothers’ to monitor and report on their practices, and encourage the party line of sinicisation. Many historic mosques have been deemed unsafe and destroyed. Those that remain are required to hoist the chinese flag, and in place of Islamic inscriptions place red banners with party slogans. Cemeteries have been bulldozed and replaced by car parks. The detainees of the camps have since been transported to forced labour factories, which amongst other things, makes islamic ritual impossible. There are credible reports of Uyghur women being sterilised and fears of organ harvesting. The high-tech totalitarianism and surveillance state in Xinjiang is driven by cultural genocide, but is also a trial run for the dictatorial market of the world. Urumqi held shows for facial recognition technology which were visited by over 100 countries, including the US, France and Israel.
June 28, 2025
Послушала аудио-книгу, но это нужно читать. Шокирующе про колонизацию Российской империей, про Восточный Туркистан. Про последний в книге немного больше, чем про остальные страны, но мне было интересно послушать про уйгуров и как они оказались в современной ситуации. Разнообразно, подробно, структурно.
September 18, 2023
Overall a very interesting, dense and informative book. At times it gets a little boring but this is negligible in almost 600 pages.
June 9, 2025
Broad and informative
September 21, 2025
“Much of Western commentary on the emergence of Central Asian states as sovereign actors insisted on their artificiality, weakness, and lack of coherence. Western observers assumed that the new states were merely the creation of the Soviets and had no purchase on their citizens’ loyalties. The reality was quite different. The republics were over sixty years old when they became independent states, and a vast storehouse of national legitimacy was available to them.”
3.5 stars. I would describe this book as: some killer, lots of filler. If you’re looking for a whistle-stop tour through the modern history of the region which covers both the stans and Xinjiang, this book is for you.
There is some really compelling analysis here, and Khalid successfully blows up a few myths about the region, which is primarily what makes this book worth the price of admission, in my opinion. I found the inclusion of Xinjiang into this history interesting, though it’s pretty clear that Khalid’s expertise (and sympathies) lay with the other side of the border. Ultimately, the narrative wanders a bit and leads the reader into some weeds on some niche issues which you’ll likely skim through (this also contributes to the book’s gratuitous length). The author also has some questionable hot takes and analysis on Xinjiang, so that, coupled with the length and less-than-ideal scoping, are why I don’t give it 5 stars.
To start with the good: myth busting.
Myth 1: The national borders of the Central Asian borders were created by Stalin/The Soviets as part of some sort of divide and rule strategy; the intention being to stem nationalist impulses and the emergence of viable independent nation states. I’d certainly heard this line of thinking previously, and looking at a map of the region it’s easy to be left with the impression that something whacky went on during the process of delineating the borders. Khalid does an excellent job of demonstrating that in fact the opposite was the case: the Soviets were trying to create national unity within the various (fractious) ethnic groups, not undermine it. Moreover, they were responding to - and the delineation process was largely driven by - longstanding local Kazakh/Uzbek/Kyrgyz/Turkmen etc national projects. Oftentimes the Soviets were trying to balance incompatible claims on various areas, not screw with the locals for the sake of it. The narrative that emerges here is one in which Central Asians themselves are driving the process, rather than an imperious dictator drawing borders according to his whims. The outcome is not so dissimilar from what emerged in southeast Europe after WW1 (I.e. at exactly the same time), where the efforts to draw borders appear somehow more comprehensible to us, if not necessarily successful.
Myth 2: Russian expansion into the region was connected to cotton and competition with Britain, ie the “Great Game”. I’d also previously heard the arguments that disruptions to the cotton market caused by the US Civil War prompted Russian advances into the region to secure new cotton supplies at the same time that Russia was attempting to stave off British encroachments. Khalid makes a compelling case that neither was true - and that indeed the very notion of a “Great Game” is largely a fiction. Rather, broad Russian strategic concerns (the need to find a natural frontier) and notions of imperial grandeur led to Russian expansion there. I would only observe here that even if British and Russian advances into the region were animated by clear strategic security concerns, that doesn’t preclude a whole bunch of intrigue and mental energy being spent at the time by both actors regarding one another, so I’m not quite sure I agree that “The Great Game” is purely a fiction.
Myth 3: that the “Silk Road” is a meaningful analytical lens to view the region’s history through. This one is pretty provocative but I’m here for it. I take Khalid’s point that the phrase is a 19th century European invention, and that it relegates the region to being a distant footnote rather than a place of history on its own terms. I would say I’m less certain about the point of North-South trade being more important than East-West. “The Silk Road works better as a metaphor of connectivity across cultures than as a description of a concrete historical phenomenon. We will make little use of the term in this book.”
Aside from the myth-busting. Khalid drew my attention to some really interesting historical episodes I was unaware of. The time USSR opened the border in the 60s to take in thousands of Kazakhs, largely to piss off the PRC. The Nazi creation of a Turkestan Legion to fight the Soviets, and how one such member came to work for the CIA. Soviet support for various groups in Xinjiang for different reasons. The 1930s Soviet campaign to break traditional Muslim customs in the region, the utter lack of support for Islamism or independence in the republics on the eve of the USSRs collapse. I learned a lot.
On the flip side, it’s clear China is not Khalid’s wheelhouse. I love the idea of a comparative history, but I didn’t get much out of this one. I was left with the reaction “so what?” To most of the portions on Xinjiang. For starters, some of the assertions Khalid makes are questionable. For example: “From what we know, there is little indication that Uyghur or Kazakh youth mobilized in Defense of Mao Zedong Thought or sought to revolutionize their own societies” - this in contrast to Soviet Central Asia. Without embarking on a quest to nuance this point, I would just observe that scholarship on this point in the Tibetan context reveals that Tibetan youth were not all indifferent to revolution and were often active participants, so I would be surprised if the same wasn’t true in Xinjiang.
Or: “Bizarrely, the (PRC-USSR) alliance remained strong while Stalin lived, but began to crumble when Khrushchev began to move the Soviet Union away from Stalin’s legacy…Xinjiang was at the centre of this dispute.” For the record, the notion that Xinjiang was “at the centre” of the Sino-Soviet split is absurd. There was also nothing “bizarre” about the relationship being strong during Stalin’s life but weak when Khrushchev began charting a different course. A fairly huge literature exists on this point so I won’t rehash this here.
“The Chinese government drew its own lessons from the Soviet collapse. In its analysis, the most important factor behind the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the mobilization of its nationalities: the Soviet constitution had given too much power to the republics, while Soviet policies of indigenization had promoted too many minority officials to positions of power.” I see the scholar Zhou Minglang is cited here, I’d be interested to read what exactly Zhou said and what documents Zhou is working off of, but suffice it to say this distorts the matter. Obviously, the collapse of the USSR is the most thought-about and studied event by the PRC leadership, and perhaps someone somewhere said something about nationality policies or the numbers of ethnic minority cadres who were promoted, but fundamentally the PRC (rightly) doesn’t view the collapse of the USSR as being about rebellious regions, nationality policies run amok, or too many ethnic minority cadres, it views the core issue as being about political reform and idealogical laxity. Ill-advised, hasty political reforms got out of control and there wasn’t a sufficiently indoctrinated corps of cadres to know better or to stop it - is how much of the current PRC leadership evidently sees it. The points about republics having too much power etc. are secondary to the primary issue, which here is being conflated with nationality policy.
“Such discontent could have been reduced if the Chinese government had been committed to more meaningful autonomy and allowed the emergence of an Uyghur political elite with some room to maneuver.” So in other words: PRC should do what USSR did in Uzbekistan. My thoughts here are: how did that work out for the USSR, and “says who?”
On the “cultural genocide” happening in Xinjiang, Khalid published this in 2020. His reportage on this point is pretty predictable and devoid of any interesting research or analysis - probably mainly for lack of access (or interest). Obviously, a lot of what’s going on/went on in Xinjiang outrages the conscience, but it would be interesting to contextualize it against other such projects in the region and elsewhere, to nuance it, and to meditate on the moral weight of different possible outcomes. If, for example, the program is ultimately wound down or morphs into something else, and the outcome is: zero people dead, semi-cultural erasure, generational trauma, a whole bunch of instances of abuse at the hands of venal officials, increased Uyghur participation in the PRC economy, increased stability, etc - what do we make of all that? What does a moral or historical analysis of that look like? We won’t find answers in this book, but food for thought.
Finally: “The idea that politics should be based on Islam is not ancient. It developed in the twentieth century.” Readers will probably have their own knee-jerk reactions regarding the veracity of a claim like this, but suffice it to say: it’s debatable. Claims like that serve as a kind of litmus test for me, and make me a bit more critical of other claims which I’m less informed on.
All in all, I enjoyed much of this book and I learned something. However, it’s WAY too long and I found at times the narrative wandered or got bogged down. This could have been a tighter, slimmer, more compellingly argued book. As it stands though, it’s not a bad introduction to the region.
3.5 stars. I would describe this book as: some killer, lots of filler. If you’re looking for a whistle-stop tour through the modern history of the region which covers both the stans and Xinjiang, this book is for you.
There is some really compelling analysis here, and Khalid successfully blows up a few myths about the region, which is primarily what makes this book worth the price of admission, in my opinion. I found the inclusion of Xinjiang into this history interesting, though it’s pretty clear that Khalid’s expertise (and sympathies) lay with the other side of the border. Ultimately, the narrative wanders a bit and leads the reader into some weeds on some niche issues which you’ll likely skim through (this also contributes to the book’s gratuitous length). The author also has some questionable hot takes and analysis on Xinjiang, so that, coupled with the length and less-than-ideal scoping, are why I don’t give it 5 stars.
To start with the good: myth busting.
Myth 1: The national borders of the Central Asian borders were created by Stalin/The Soviets as part of some sort of divide and rule strategy; the intention being to stem nationalist impulses and the emergence of viable independent nation states. I’d certainly heard this line of thinking previously, and looking at a map of the region it’s easy to be left with the impression that something whacky went on during the process of delineating the borders. Khalid does an excellent job of demonstrating that in fact the opposite was the case: the Soviets were trying to create national unity within the various (fractious) ethnic groups, not undermine it. Moreover, they were responding to - and the delineation process was largely driven by - longstanding local Kazakh/Uzbek/Kyrgyz/Turkmen etc national projects. Oftentimes the Soviets were trying to balance incompatible claims on various areas, not screw with the locals for the sake of it. The narrative that emerges here is one in which Central Asians themselves are driving the process, rather than an imperious dictator drawing borders according to his whims. The outcome is not so dissimilar from what emerged in southeast Europe after WW1 (I.e. at exactly the same time), where the efforts to draw borders appear somehow more comprehensible to us, if not necessarily successful.
Myth 2: Russian expansion into the region was connected to cotton and competition with Britain, ie the “Great Game”. I’d also previously heard the arguments that disruptions to the cotton market caused by the US Civil War prompted Russian advances into the region to secure new cotton supplies at the same time that Russia was attempting to stave off British encroachments. Khalid makes a compelling case that neither was true - and that indeed the very notion of a “Great Game” is largely a fiction. Rather, broad Russian strategic concerns (the need to find a natural frontier) and notions of imperial grandeur led to Russian expansion there. I would only observe here that even if British and Russian advances into the region were animated by clear strategic security concerns, that doesn’t preclude a whole bunch of intrigue and mental energy being spent at the time by both actors regarding one another, so I’m not quite sure I agree that “The Great Game” is purely a fiction.
Myth 3: that the “Silk Road” is a meaningful analytical lens to view the region’s history through. This one is pretty provocative but I’m here for it. I take Khalid’s point that the phrase is a 19th century European invention, and that it relegates the region to being a distant footnote rather than a place of history on its own terms. I would say I’m less certain about the point of North-South trade being more important than East-West. “The Silk Road works better as a metaphor of connectivity across cultures than as a description of a concrete historical phenomenon. We will make little use of the term in this book.”
Aside from the myth-busting. Khalid drew my attention to some really interesting historical episodes I was unaware of. The time USSR opened the border in the 60s to take in thousands of Kazakhs, largely to piss off the PRC. The Nazi creation of a Turkestan Legion to fight the Soviets, and how one such member came to work for the CIA. Soviet support for various groups in Xinjiang for different reasons. The 1930s Soviet campaign to break traditional Muslim customs in the region, the utter lack of support for Islamism or independence in the republics on the eve of the USSRs collapse. I learned a lot.
On the flip side, it’s clear China is not Khalid’s wheelhouse. I love the idea of a comparative history, but I didn’t get much out of this one. I was left with the reaction “so what?” To most of the portions on Xinjiang. For starters, some of the assertions Khalid makes are questionable. For example: “From what we know, there is little indication that Uyghur or Kazakh youth mobilized in Defense of Mao Zedong Thought or sought to revolutionize their own societies” - this in contrast to Soviet Central Asia. Without embarking on a quest to nuance this point, I would just observe that scholarship on this point in the Tibetan context reveals that Tibetan youth were not all indifferent to revolution and were often active participants, so I would be surprised if the same wasn’t true in Xinjiang.
Or: “Bizarrely, the (PRC-USSR) alliance remained strong while Stalin lived, but began to crumble when Khrushchev began to move the Soviet Union away from Stalin’s legacy…Xinjiang was at the centre of this dispute.” For the record, the notion that Xinjiang was “at the centre” of the Sino-Soviet split is absurd. There was also nothing “bizarre” about the relationship being strong during Stalin’s life but weak when Khrushchev began charting a different course. A fairly huge literature exists on this point so I won’t rehash this here.
“The Chinese government drew its own lessons from the Soviet collapse. In its analysis, the most important factor behind the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the mobilization of its nationalities: the Soviet constitution had given too much power to the republics, while Soviet policies of indigenization had promoted too many minority officials to positions of power.” I see the scholar Zhou Minglang is cited here, I’d be interested to read what exactly Zhou said and what documents Zhou is working off of, but suffice it to say this distorts the matter. Obviously, the collapse of the USSR is the most thought-about and studied event by the PRC leadership, and perhaps someone somewhere said something about nationality policies or the numbers of ethnic minority cadres who were promoted, but fundamentally the PRC (rightly) doesn’t view the collapse of the USSR as being about rebellious regions, nationality policies run amok, or too many ethnic minority cadres, it views the core issue as being about political reform and idealogical laxity. Ill-advised, hasty political reforms got out of control and there wasn’t a sufficiently indoctrinated corps of cadres to know better or to stop it - is how much of the current PRC leadership evidently sees it. The points about republics having too much power etc. are secondary to the primary issue, which here is being conflated with nationality policy.
“Such discontent could have been reduced if the Chinese government had been committed to more meaningful autonomy and allowed the emergence of an Uyghur political elite with some room to maneuver.” So in other words: PRC should do what USSR did in Uzbekistan. My thoughts here are: how did that work out for the USSR, and “says who?”
On the “cultural genocide” happening in Xinjiang, Khalid published this in 2020. His reportage on this point is pretty predictable and devoid of any interesting research or analysis - probably mainly for lack of access (or interest). Obviously, a lot of what’s going on/went on in Xinjiang outrages the conscience, but it would be interesting to contextualize it against other such projects in the region and elsewhere, to nuance it, and to meditate on the moral weight of different possible outcomes. If, for example, the program is ultimately wound down or morphs into something else, and the outcome is: zero people dead, semi-cultural erasure, generational trauma, a whole bunch of instances of abuse at the hands of venal officials, increased Uyghur participation in the PRC economy, increased stability, etc - what do we make of all that? What does a moral or historical analysis of that look like? We won’t find answers in this book, but food for thought.
Finally: “The idea that politics should be based on Islam is not ancient. It developed in the twentieth century.” Readers will probably have their own knee-jerk reactions regarding the veracity of a claim like this, but suffice it to say: it’s debatable. Claims like that serve as a kind of litmus test for me, and make me a bit more critical of other claims which I’m less informed on.
All in all, I enjoyed much of this book and I learned something. However, it’s WAY too long and I found at times the narrative wandered or got bogged down. This could have been a tighter, slimmer, more compellingly argued book. As it stands though, it’s not a bad introduction to the region.
September 11, 2025
An incredible history of one of those "crossroads" regions of the world where cultural and political influences collide. Very detailed but also pretty readable and well-organized. Khalid particularly explores throughout different eras how ideas of nationality were developed and shifted in Central Asia. It was very interesting to read his contrast between the more pluralistic Soviet and increasingly homogenizing Chinese approach to nationalisms and ethnicity in Turkestan. Khalid also brings to the forefront the region's unique, variegated, and complex relationships between Islam and politics. For example, he explores how traditional Muslim elites, known as Ulama, were displaced by reformers, known as Jadid, in various societies. Despite many similarities on the surface, the relationships between traditional elites and reformers resulted in very different outcomes across borders. My Central Asia kick continues, and this was the perfect read to get me oriented with the region's history.
July 11, 2024
As excited as I was about this find when I first discovered it, I have to admit that I was also skeptical -- the author does not appear to have roots in Central Asia, nor does he seem to be living there. Can someone of non-Central Asian heritage tell our story truthfully? Central Asian history has been told largely by others - Russians or Chinese - and I found myself missing an insider perspective about the this region's history and influence presented to the global stage.
I was mind blown by the writer's deep understanding and knowledge of different chapters and "lives" the region has experienced - from the Persian influence to the Mongol Empire, from the Chinese conquests in the East to the Russian Empire expansion from the North, from Pan-Turkism to being part of the biggest macroeconomic social experiment of the 20th century (USSR), to national self-determination in form of Khanates and later Soviet Republics. I felt like I could zoom in to the history of certain events - like when Tashkent and the Fergana Valley, modern-day Uzbekistan, were territories that Kazakhs and Tajiks, respectively, claimed as their own. I have to admit that our school material either excluded this fact, or I simply missed it (more likely the latter).
Having finished this read, as grateful as I am for the author's contribution, I still have to admit that this book is an "outsider" perspective on Central Asia. The author does a great job describing how global events, such as WWI and WWII influence the region, and how its population, astonishingly - only in 80 years - became an inseparable part of the Soviet identity. But some things remain open for discussion. The author makes big claims based on statistical data (like "Central Asians did not want to move to the cities") - "want" is a strong choice of word. Just because the indigenous population was less present in cities like Almaty and Tashkent, it doesn't mean the representatives did not desire to live there. Do not forget that in the Soviet Union, people had to be assigned jobs and apartments to move to a certain place, and very often, even in Central Asian republics, the preference was for professionals of Slavic origin. One cannot blindly believe statistical data to make claims about the root cause of an issue.
Another thing that was striking to me is just the frequency of the word "Muslim" used by the author. He keeps referring to the indigenous population as the "Muslims of Central Asia" on so many occasions, it almost feels like being Muslim is 90% of the population's identity. I can probably only speak on behalf of Kazakhs here, but even before the USSR and being part of the Russian Empire, Kazakhs had rarely referred to themselves as "Muslims of Central Asia". It's just not a thing. People identify with their "ru" (direct heritage) and sometimes jüz (Horde), and they have always known their Jeti Ata (7 grandfathers) by heart to avoid incest. The law that people abided to was Jeti Jargy - and it does not have direct links with Islam, rather with the Laws of the Steppe. Tengriism, I believe, did not get mentioned once in the book, but it's had far larger impact on Kazakh culture than Islam did. Tengri beliefs are well reflected in modern-day customs and life philosophy of Kazakhs, and many given names come from it ("Qudai" is the word for God). I agree that southern regions of Central Asia, however, have much stronger ties with Islam, but it in a book about Central Asia, it is important to talk about its religious and philosophical diversity, and its own interpretation of Islam, which is vastly different than countries outside of the region.
Overall, I am thankful to the author for the work he did. I only aspire to have this much enthusiasm, depth of knowledge and ability to comprehend and communicate it a region's history in such a format. Amazing work, and I will highly recommend it to my family and friends in Central Asia. Thank you.
I was mind blown by the writer's deep understanding and knowledge of different chapters and "lives" the region has experienced - from the Persian influence to the Mongol Empire, from the Chinese conquests in the East to the Russian Empire expansion from the North, from Pan-Turkism to being part of the biggest macroeconomic social experiment of the 20th century (USSR), to national self-determination in form of Khanates and later Soviet Republics. I felt like I could zoom in to the history of certain events - like when Tashkent and the Fergana Valley, modern-day Uzbekistan, were territories that Kazakhs and Tajiks, respectively, claimed as their own. I have to admit that our school material either excluded this fact, or I simply missed it (more likely the latter).
Having finished this read, as grateful as I am for the author's contribution, I still have to admit that this book is an "outsider" perspective on Central Asia. The author does a great job describing how global events, such as WWI and WWII influence the region, and how its population, astonishingly - only in 80 years - became an inseparable part of the Soviet identity. But some things remain open for discussion. The author makes big claims based on statistical data (like "Central Asians did not want to move to the cities") - "want" is a strong choice of word. Just because the indigenous population was less present in cities like Almaty and Tashkent, it doesn't mean the representatives did not desire to live there. Do not forget that in the Soviet Union, people had to be assigned jobs and apartments to move to a certain place, and very often, even in Central Asian republics, the preference was for professionals of Slavic origin. One cannot blindly believe statistical data to make claims about the root cause of an issue.
Another thing that was striking to me is just the frequency of the word "Muslim" used by the author. He keeps referring to the indigenous population as the "Muslims of Central Asia" on so many occasions, it almost feels like being Muslim is 90% of the population's identity. I can probably only speak on behalf of Kazakhs here, but even before the USSR and being part of the Russian Empire, Kazakhs had rarely referred to themselves as "Muslims of Central Asia". It's just not a thing. People identify with their "ru" (direct heritage) and sometimes jüz (Horde), and they have always known their Jeti Ata (7 grandfathers) by heart to avoid incest. The law that people abided to was Jeti Jargy - and it does not have direct links with Islam, rather with the Laws of the Steppe. Tengriism, I believe, did not get mentioned once in the book, but it's had far larger impact on Kazakh culture than Islam did. Tengri beliefs are well reflected in modern-day customs and life philosophy of Kazakhs, and many given names come from it ("Qudai" is the word for God). I agree that southern regions of Central Asia, however, have much stronger ties with Islam, but it in a book about Central Asia, it is important to talk about its religious and philosophical diversity, and its own interpretation of Islam, which is vastly different than countries outside of the region.
Overall, I am thankful to the author for the work he did. I only aspire to have this much enthusiasm, depth of knowledge and ability to comprehend and communicate it a region's history in such a format. Amazing work, and I will highly recommend it to my family and friends in Central Asia. Thank you.
July 31, 2022
For such a sprawling work, taking one from the introduction of Islam to the region, to the contemporary political situation (the book basically ends with Beijing's oppression of Xianjiang), Khalid does a good job of giving you a coherent perspective on how the region has arrived at its current state. Inevitably, this winds up as a case study on the differences between Russian/Soviet and Qing/Maoist state building. I can see a lot of undergrads being assigned this book to read, and they'll mostly be better off for having done so.
July 27, 2021
Best book and work on the history of Central Asia.
Everybody needs to read this book to gain an understanding of this forgotten or ignored region of the world and why it is a concern when it comes to relationship with Russia and as well as China.
Everybody needs to read this book to gain an understanding of this forgotten or ignored region of the world and why it is a concern when it comes to relationship with Russia and as well as China.
February 13, 2025
Few regions in the world have undergone as many radical transformations as Central Asia. Once the crossroads of empires and civilizations, it has been shaped by conquest, revolution, and the shifting tides of global power. In Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present, Adeeb Khalid masterfully reconstructs the region’s modern history, challenging outdated stereotypes of the “timeless” and “remote” steppe.
Khalid’s narrative departs from conventional approaches that focus solely on nomadism or Silk Road nostalgia. Instead, he presents Central Asia as a dynamic space shaped by the competing influences of Russian, Chinese, and Ottoman empires, the Soviet Union’s sweeping social experiments, and the national awakenings of the post-Cold War era. His analysis of how colonialism, modernization, and socialism remade Central Asian identities is particularly compelling. Rather than framing the region as a passive subject of history, Khalid shows how local actors navigated and even shaped these forces, whether through resistance, adaptation, or reform.
One of the book’s strengths is its clarity in navigating the complex transitions from imperial rule to Soviet socialism and then to independent nation-states. Khalid effectively highlights the paradoxes of Soviet rule—how it simultaneously oppressed and modernized Central Asia, fostering industrialization and mass education while also suppressing indigenous culture and political autonomy. His exploration of the post-Soviet period provides crucial context for understanding today’s Central Asian republics, balancing their authoritarian realities with the legacies of Soviet governance.
Khalid writes with the confidence of a scholar who has spent decades studying the region, yet his prose remains accessible, making this an excellent resource for both specialists and general readers. He avoids the fatalistic narratives that often dominate discussions of Central Asia, instead portraying a region that, despite external pressures, has continually redefined itself.
Central Asia is a landmark contribution to the study of the region, offering a nuanced and authoritative account of how history has shaped its political and cultural landscapes. For those seeking to move beyond simplistic portrayals and understand the complexities of Central Asia’s past and present, this book is essential reading.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Khalid’s narrative departs from conventional approaches that focus solely on nomadism or Silk Road nostalgia. Instead, he presents Central Asia as a dynamic space shaped by the competing influences of Russian, Chinese, and Ottoman empires, the Soviet Union’s sweeping social experiments, and the national awakenings of the post-Cold War era. His analysis of how colonialism, modernization, and socialism remade Central Asian identities is particularly compelling. Rather than framing the region as a passive subject of history, Khalid shows how local actors navigated and even shaped these forces, whether through resistance, adaptation, or reform.
One of the book’s strengths is its clarity in navigating the complex transitions from imperial rule to Soviet socialism and then to independent nation-states. Khalid effectively highlights the paradoxes of Soviet rule—how it simultaneously oppressed and modernized Central Asia, fostering industrialization and mass education while also suppressing indigenous culture and political autonomy. His exploration of the post-Soviet period provides crucial context for understanding today’s Central Asian republics, balancing their authoritarian realities with the legacies of Soviet governance.
Khalid writes with the confidence of a scholar who has spent decades studying the region, yet his prose remains accessible, making this an excellent resource for both specialists and general readers. He avoids the fatalistic narratives that often dominate discussions of Central Asia, instead portraying a region that, despite external pressures, has continually redefined itself.
Central Asia is a landmark contribution to the study of the region, offering a nuanced and authoritative account of how history has shaped its political and cultural landscapes. For those seeking to move beyond simplistic portrayals and understand the complexities of Central Asia’s past and present, this book is essential reading.
Rating: 5 out of 5
September 12, 2025
“Central Asia” is a history of the past 250 years of this region, including the five main countries – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, as well as the Xinjiang province of China.
Before reading this book, I knew little about this region and referred to it as “The Stans”. Afterwards I’ll refrain from using this term – because it is far from a homogenous region.
The book covers the many historical pressures and opportunities that shaped the development of these nations including the types of people who resided in Central Asia (urban vs. nomadic peoples, Muslin traditions, etc.) the geography and important world events – including colonialism, the rise and fall and rise again of world powers (Britain in India, Russia and Japan, the Opium Wars in China, the Communist Revolution etc..) – and how these brought about change in this world.
Abdeed Khalid’s book is encyclopaedic in detail, covering a year-by-year history of Central Asia. In this sense he is a pioneer with this history and this is an amazing work.
The important lessons for me are the differences among the various countries and Xinjiang are from each other, how communist states operated differently with regard to nationalism. The USSR generally permitted and built upon national traditions as it is founded largely on “Western foundations” of nation states, while the CCP is more totalitarian and not generally tolerant because it is based on the Han people and racial identity than a political concept.
I think it was very intelligent of the author to add in Xinjiang, to help bring out the differences between the Russian and Chinese influences over Central Asia and the book would have been much less valuable without this reference.
Regarding the negatives about this book, it is very focused on the details and while it does try to abstract lessons from each section, the vast amount of detail makes it difficult at times to see the overall trends.
In short, one gets lost looking at the proverbial trees without being able to see the forest while reading the book.
In terms of ranking I’d give the book a 5 out of 5 for detail, but even after reading it, I’m a little unclear of what this all means and where does the author believe Central Asia is headed. Clarity of message is vital for a book so I think a fair review is round down the book to a 4 out of 5.
Before reading this book, I knew little about this region and referred to it as “The Stans”. Afterwards I’ll refrain from using this term – because it is far from a homogenous region.
The book covers the many historical pressures and opportunities that shaped the development of these nations including the types of people who resided in Central Asia (urban vs. nomadic peoples, Muslin traditions, etc.) the geography and important world events – including colonialism, the rise and fall and rise again of world powers (Britain in India, Russia and Japan, the Opium Wars in China, the Communist Revolution etc..) – and how these brought about change in this world.
Abdeed Khalid’s book is encyclopaedic in detail, covering a year-by-year history of Central Asia. In this sense he is a pioneer with this history and this is an amazing work.
The important lessons for me are the differences among the various countries and Xinjiang are from each other, how communist states operated differently with regard to nationalism. The USSR generally permitted and built upon national traditions as it is founded largely on “Western foundations” of nation states, while the CCP is more totalitarian and not generally tolerant because it is based on the Han people and racial identity than a political concept.
I think it was very intelligent of the author to add in Xinjiang, to help bring out the differences between the Russian and Chinese influences over Central Asia and the book would have been much less valuable without this reference.
Regarding the negatives about this book, it is very focused on the details and while it does try to abstract lessons from each section, the vast amount of detail makes it difficult at times to see the overall trends.
In short, one gets lost looking at the proverbial trees without being able to see the forest while reading the book.
In terms of ranking I’d give the book a 5 out of 5 for detail, but even after reading it, I’m a little unclear of what this all means and where does the author believe Central Asia is headed. Clarity of message is vital for a book so I think a fair review is round down the book to a 4 out of 5.
December 20, 2024
Khalid's command of the sources and ability to present a coherent narrative across the tumultuous changes his book covers makes 'Central Asia' a highly accessible and fascinating study of historical development and the emergence of the modern world in a region regarded as backwards, mysterious, and out of time. Khalid takes the time to dismantle common misconceptions about the region, particularly those born out of both Soviet and American theories of nationhood and islam to allow the people of the region to define their own, often contradictory, national stories. Particularly interesting was the discussion of the indigenous nature of Soviet social policy. The western perception of Soviet policies attempts to categorize them as imperialistic, which in my opinion is both a cold war holdover and the imposition of western debates over laicite and secularization of islamic societies to a context where it does not make sense. That it was largely the communist youth of Central Asia and not bureaucrats from Moscow who led the charge against religious authorities and norms, as well as their brutal culling in Stalin's purges, followed by cooptation of traditional social organization and gender roles into the Communist ideal, speaks much more to the nuanced character of Soviet nationalities policies than trying to fit the Soviet Central Asian experience into a typical imperial context. That context is reserved for discussing Xinjiang where it is much more applicable. The contrast between the two halves of Central Asia forms a core part of the book's narrative and at times the book risks becoming disjointed given the dramatically divergent trajectories of the two regions. However, the contrast remains illustrative of the non-homogeneous nature of Central Asia, and indeed of the two powers that came to dominate it in the twentieth century. This is a highly recommended read for anyone interested in learning more about this part of the world.
March 26, 2025
The depth and breadth of this author's knowledge, along with his ability to present the information in clear, readable prose is admirable. This book shows the artificiality of national borders over the centuries, as well as the effects nationalism may have on a population, as well as how nationalism may be used for propaganda purposes. Having joined a group tour in Central Asia a couple of years ago, I found that the "history" of the "Five 'Stans" that is imparted to tourists is generally limited to Islamic history of the Middle Ages, and a few anecdotes about the British during the late 1700s and early 1800s. There was virtually no mention of the effects of the 70 years of Soviet rule (from time-to-time one sees a bust of Lenin in some dusty small town); and only small hints of the current profound efforts of the Chinese government to exert control by "gifts" and "loans" used to construct large governmental buildings and an extensive road network. This book examines both these subjects extensively and well. I wish I had read this book prior to my trip to the region, as I would have been able to better understand the profound effect of the Soviet Union on Central Asia, and its hangover effects.
The last chapter alone is worth the price of the book, as it examines China's internal ethnic cleansing and enforcement of slave labor of the Uighur population in the Xinjiang region of China, as well as China's cynical defenses of these policies (and actions), its lies about them over the last several years, the role of Western countries in creating a mutably defined "terrorist" as a criminal, and, perhaps, the terrible technological fate we all face of complete governmental control exercised by ubiquitous cameras, facial recognition, police powers to obtain DNA and iris scans at will, intrusions of government employees into homes, and control over access to the Internet. Oh, and thereeducation camps gulag prisons.
The last chapter alone is worth the price of the book, as it examines China's internal ethnic cleansing and enforcement of slave labor of the Uighur population in the Xinjiang region of China, as well as China's cynical defenses of these policies (and actions), its lies about them over the last several years, the role of Western countries in creating a mutably defined "terrorist" as a criminal, and, perhaps, the terrible technological fate we all face of complete governmental control exercised by ubiquitous cameras, facial recognition, police powers to obtain DNA and iris scans at will, intrusions of government employees into homes, and control over access to the Internet. Oh, and the
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