Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The beginnings
- 2 The Kök Turks, the Chinese expansion, and the Arab conquest
- 3 The Samanids
- 4 The Uighur kingdom of Qocho
- 5 The Qarakhanids
- 6 Seljukids and Ghaznavids
- 7 The conquering Mongols
- 8 The Chaghatayids
- 9 Timur and the Timurids
- 10 The last Timurids and the first Uzbeks
- 11 The Shaybanids
- 12 The rise of Russia, the fall of the Golden Horde, and the resilient Chaghatayids
- 13 The Buddhist Mongols
- 14 Bukhara, Khiva, and Khoqand in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries
- 15 The Russian conquest and rule of Central Asia
- 16 From Governorates-General to Union Republics
- 17 Soviet Central Asia
- 18 Central Asia becomes independent
- 19 Sinkiang as part of China
- 20 Independent Central Asian Republics
- 21 The Republic of Mongolia
- Summary and conclusion
- Appendix 1 Dynastic tables
- Appendix 2 Country data
- Select bibliography
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The beginnings
- 2 The Kök Turks, the Chinese expansion, and the Arab conquest
- 3 The Samanids
- 4 The Uighur kingdom of Qocho
- 5 The Qarakhanids
- 6 Seljukids and Ghaznavids
- 7 The conquering Mongols
- 8 The Chaghatayids
- 9 Timur and the Timurids
- 10 The last Timurids and the first Uzbeks
- 11 The Shaybanids
- 12 The rise of Russia, the fall of the Golden Horde, and the resilient Chaghatayids
- 13 The Buddhist Mongols
- 14 Bukhara, Khiva, and Khoqand in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries
- 15 The Russian conquest and rule of Central Asia
- 16 From Governorates-General to Union Republics
- 17 Soviet Central Asia
- 18 Central Asia becomes independent
- 19 Sinkiang as part of China
- 20 Independent Central Asian Republics
- 21 The Republic of Mongolia
- Summary and conclusion
- Appendix 1 Dynastic tables
- Appendix 2 Country data
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
This book is an attempt to offer the reader a historical and topical introduction to several countries in the core of Eurasia which until recently were little noticed except by a small community of scholars or people who had special reasons to do so. One result of this neglect has been a lack of adequate literature of the kind presented here: a general survey of the past and present of this part of the world.
Almost overnight, a few years ago, these countries – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Sinkiang, and Mongolia – began to attract considerable attention from politicians, journalists, businessmen, and academicians. The reason was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since the formation of that Union in the early 1920s, the first five of the group had been almost sequestered by the rulers of the Soviet empire. The outside world was barred from unhindered access and communication with them, and their own citizens found contact with that world both difficult and risky. Mongolia was officially independent, but its membership in the family of Soviet satellites had imposed on it similar strictures. For the same reason, the Soviet Union's demise affected it almost as profoundly as it did the five Union republics. We are also including Sinkiang, although the course of its recent history has followed a somewhat different path. The inclusion is justified, we think, because the province is geographically as well as historically an integral part of the group, and because the evolution occurring among its members is likely to affect Sinkiang as well.
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- Information
- A History of Inner Asia , pp. ix - xivPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000