“For those who still get their ‘-stans’ mixed up, Hiro’s book provides a detailed and nuanced overview of the region.” —Financial Times (Best Books

Historian Dilip Hiro offers us a narrative that places the modern politics, peoples, and cultural background of this region firmly into the context of current i

A vast region stretching roughly from the Volga River to Manchuria and the northern Chinese borderlands, Central Asia has been called the "pivot of history," a

With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, its fifteen constituent republics suddenly found themselves sovereign states. Among the new countries are the five

A major history of Central Asia and how it has been shaped by modern world events Central Asia is often seen as a remote and inaccessible land on the peripherie