Best Books on Central Asia in 2017

Books

Transforming Post-Soviet Tajikistan: An Interview with Hélène Thibault

byvoca
Posted on October 25, 2018October 25, 2018

Hélène Thibault’s new book on Tajikistan, Transforming Tajikistan: State-Building and Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia, takes readers on a journey through the transformation of Tajikistan’s state structures and national ideology since the…

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10 min
1.3K

Books

Victoria Clement on Learning to Become Turkmen

byAitolkyn Kourmanova
Posted on August 22, 2018August 23, 2018

Author Victoria Clement Victoria Clement is Eurasia Regional Analyst with Professional Solutions at the Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning, Marine Corps University in Quantico, VA. Her research focuses on…

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11 min
1.7K

Books

Bazaars: Power and Trade in Central Asia

byAitolkyn Kourmanova
Posted on July 18, 2018July 19, 2018

Bazaars are hubs of entrepreneurial power in Central Asia, and that power is expressed both formally and informally. By immersing herself in the bazaars of Kyrgyzstan, Regine Spector learned that…

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11 min
1.9K

Books

Joanna Lillis on the Secret World of Kazakhstan

byvoca
Posted on July 5, 2018July 6, 2018

Joanna Lillis is a well-known journalist who has been one of the main reporters on Central Asia over the past 13 years. Her book Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World…

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9 min
912

Books

Central Asia in the Era of Sovereignty The Return of Tamerlane? Book launch

byAitolkyn Kourmanova
Posted on June 20, 2018June 20, 2018

On June 7, 2018, Central Asia Program hosted the book launch for Central Asia in the Era of Sovereignty: The Return of Tamerlane? The event featured some of the book’s…

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13 min
1.7K

Hamid Ismailov On “The Devils’ Dance” and Other Works

byvoca
Posted on April 18, 2018April 18, 2018

“A beguiling tale of khans, commissars, spies and poet-queens…[who] feature in a rare English translation of modern Uzbek fiction.” This is how The Economist described The Devils’ Dance, the most…

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12 min
2K

Books

“Have the Mountains Fallen?” The Story of Two Journeys of Loss and Redemption in the Cold War

byAitolkyn Kourmanova
Posted on April 4, 2018April 10, 2018

In the early 1990s, while working as a journalist in Moscow, Jeff Lilley witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 2004, he moved to Kyrgyz Republic. After spending around…

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13 min
3.8K

“Azan on the Moon”: Anthropology of Infrastructure

byAitolkyn Kourmanova
Posted on February 25, 2018February 26, 2018

Till Mostowlansky is intrigued by the anthropological study of routes, roads and pathways, and the anthropology of infrastructure more generally. This research interest frames his latest monograph, Azan on the Moon: Entangling…

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8 min
1.7K

Iconic Places in Central Asia. The Moral Geography of Dams, Pastures and Holy Sites explained by Jeanne Féaux de la Croix

byAitolkyn Kourmanova
Posted on January 29, 2018February 2, 2018

Interview Dr. Jeanne Féaux de la Croix Dr. Jeanne Féaux de la Croix is a social anthropologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany. She specializes in environmental issues and…

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19 min
10.5K

China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact in Central Asia

byAitolkyn Kourmanova
Posted on January 19, 2018February 1, 2018

The NAC-NU Central Asia Studies Program, in partnership with GW’s Central Asia Program, has published a book on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its impact in Central Asia.…

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17 min
2.4K

Books

Sufism as a Product of Collective Imagination: On a New History of Islamic Mysticism

byAitolkyn Kourmanova
Posted on December 27, 2017April 2, 2018

Alexander Knysh’s Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism is the result of more than thirty years of study of Sufism and Sufis. The monograph critically reconsiders approaches to the…

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9 min
8.4K

Books