NB Central Asian Studies

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NB Central Asian Studies A podcast about Central Asia. Part of the New Books Network. Interviews with scholars of Central Asia about their new books.

Our guest for this episode is Raffaello Pantucci, co-author of SINOSTAN: China's Inadvertent Empire (Oxford University P...
18/04/2022

Our guest for this episode is Raffaello Pantucci, co-author of SINOSTAN: China's Inadvertent Empire (Oxford University Press), a new book that approaches through a very novel lens one of the most talked-about issues in Eurasian Studies: China's role in Central Asia. Pantucci and his co-author, the late Alexandros Pedersen, travel around the vast Chinese territory, Central Asia and Afghanistan to document the intensification and the multiplication of China's political, military, and economic linkages with its western neighbors. More than a travelogue, Pantucci and Pedersen master different level of analysis--the global, the regional, and the personal--to reflect upon the wider, longer-term implications of a policy framework that is only superficially uncoordinated, yet achieved great success in relatively short time. Learn more on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/sinostan

Listen in as we talk to Togzhan Kassenova, author of ATOMIC STEPPE: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb (Stanford University...
09/04/2022

Listen in as we talk to Togzhan Kassenova, author of ATOMIC STEPPE: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb (Stanford University Press), a new book that tells the untold true story of how Kazakhstan said "no" to the most powerful weapons in human history. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the newly independent Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's 4th largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. Would it give up these fire-ready weapons--or try to become a Central Asian North Korea? This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present. PODCAST LINK 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/atomic-steppe

HAMMER and ANVIL: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World (Rowman & Littlefield) is a groundbreaking new book that...
06/04/2022

HAMMER and ANVIL: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World (Rowman & Littlefield) is a groundbreaking new book that examines the role of rulers with nomadic roots in transforming the great societies of Eurasia, especially from the 13th to 16th centuries. Historian Pamela Kyle Crossley, drawing on the long history of nomadic confrontation with Eurasia’s densely populated civilizations, argues that the distinctive changes we associate with modernity were founded on vernacular literature and arts, rising literacy, mercantile and financial economies, religious dissidence, independent learning, and self-legitimating rulership. Crossley finds that political traditions of Central Asia insulated rulers from established religious authority and promoted the objectification of cultural identities marked by language and faith, which created a mutual encouragement of cultural and political change. Delve deeper on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/hammer-and-anvil

Ayse Zarakol is the author of BEFORE the WEST: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders (Cambridge University Press - H...
05/04/2022

Ayse Zarakol is the author of BEFORE the WEST: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders (Cambridge University Press - History, Classics and Archaeology), a new book offering a grand narrative of (Eur)Asia as a space connected by normatively and institutionally overlapping successive world orders originating from the Mongol Empire. It uses that vast history to rethink the foundational concepts and debates of international relations, such as order and decline. How would the history of international relations in 'the East' be written if we did not always read the ending - the Rise of the West and the decline of the East - into the past? Find out as Zarakol joins us on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/before-the-west

Greater interest in what's happening in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang in recent years has generated a prop...
24/11/2020

Greater interest in what's happening in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang in recent years has generated a proportional need for context, and especially insights into the politics and policies being enacted there and how these interface with local perspectives. For this reason and many others, David Tobin’s SECURING CHINA'S NORTHWEST FRONTIER (Cambridge University Press) is a vital contribution to our understanding of the PRC state-building and narrative-creation efforts which justify projects like the region’s vast network of detention camps. Tobin is Ed Pulford's guest on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/securing-chinas-northwest-frontier

Mongolia is sometimes seen as one of the few examples of a successful youth-led revolution, where a 1990 movement forced...
19/11/2020

Mongolia is sometimes seen as one of the few examples of a successful youth-led revolution, where a 1990 movement forced the Soviet-appointed Politburo to resign. In YOUNG MONGOLS: Forging Democracy in the Wild, Wild East (Penguin Random House Sea), Aubrey Menard profiles many of today’s young activists in Mongolia, in a wide array of different areas like pollution, feminism, LGBT rights, and journalism. Menard joins Asian Review of Books ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/young-mongols

THE POLITICS of POLICE REFORM: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries (Oxford University Press) provides an ...
09/11/2020

THE POLITICS of POLICE REFORM: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries (Oxford University Press) provides an answer to a very important question: “What does it take to reform a post-Soviet police force?” Erica Marat looks at specific case studies – in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan – in order to identify and analyze instances where public mobilization challenged the conduct of police offers and their use of violence. She considers the legacies of Soviet policing, but also identifies important factors that led to policing’s reform. Check out her conversation with Nicholas Seay 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/erica-marat-the-politics-of-police-reform-society-against-the-state-in-post-soviet-countries-oxford-up-2018

Sean Roberts, author of THE WAR on the UYGHURS: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority (Princeton Universit...
16/09/2020

Sean Roberts, author of THE WAR on the UYGHURS: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority (Princeton University Press) addresses questions about who the Uyghurs are and what their relationship with China has been like historically; how China’s systematic campaign to erase Uyghur identity and culture is linked to the global U.S.-led war on terror; the idea of self-fulfilling prophecies and how it contextualizes Uyghur responses to China’s violent policies; some suggestions for responding to this human tragedy; and his own experiences meeting and talking with Uyghurs and doing this research. 👂↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/sean-roberts-the-war-on-the-uyghurs-chinas-internal-campaign-against-a-muslim-minority-princeton-up-2020/

A book that combines a look at the history of the Sino-Russian border with a focus on the experiences of everyday border...
08/09/2020

A book that combines a look at the history of the Sino-Russian border with a focus on the experiences of everyday borderlanders, Sören Urbansky’s BEYOND the STEPPE FRONTIERr: A History of the Sino-Russian Border (Princeton University Press) shows how the inter-state boundary took shape as a result of actions by local people, whose lives have in turn been transformed by existence next to a geopolitical fault line. Urbanksy joins the NBN's Ed Pulford on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/soren-urbansky-beyond-the-steppe-frontier-a-history-of-the-sino-russian-border-princeton-up-2020/

Based on personal observations, interviews, and a variety of primary and secondary publications, Iraj Bashiri's new book...
05/08/2020

Based on personal observations, interviews, and a variety of primary and secondary publications, Iraj Bashiri's new book, THE HISTORY of the CIVIL WAR in TAJIKISTAN (Academic Studies Press) places the conflict in a broader historical context, paying careful attention to longstanding tensions that came to the forefront in the early 1990s. These include ideology, regionalism, and, most importantly, disagreements over the role of religion in the functioning of the state. Bashiri is our guest on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/iraj-bashiri-the-history-of-the-civil-war-in-tajikistan-academic-studies-press-2020/

The collapse of the Soviet Union famously opened new venues for the theories of nationalism and the study of processes a...
22/07/2020

The collapse of the Soviet Union famously opened new venues for the theories of nationalism and the study of processes and actors involved in these new nation-building processes. In TOWARD NATIONALIZING REGIMES: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm (University of Pittsburgh Press), Diana T. Kudaibergenova takes the new states and nations of Eurasia that emerged in 1991, Latvia and Kazakhstan, and seeks to better understand the phenomenon of post-Soviet states tapping into nationalism to build legitimacy. She joins Steven Seegel ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/diana-t-kudaibergenova-toward-nationalizing-regimes-conceptualizing-power-and-identity-in-the-post-soviet-realm-u-pittsburgh-press-2020/

THE BUKHARAN CRISIS: A Connected History of 18th-Century Central Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press) brings new perspe...
15/07/2020

THE BUKHARAN CRISIS: A Connected History of 18th-Century Central Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press) brings new perspectives to the historiography of early modern Central Asia. Historian Scott Levi reflects on recent scholarship to identify multiple causal factors that contributed to the Bukharan crisis of the 18th century. These include climate change, the global silver trade, the innovation of new gunpowder and weapon technologies, and a number of political transformations in surrounding states. Learn more as Levi joins us 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/scott-levi-the-bukharan-crisis-a-connected-history-of-18th-century-central-asia-u-pittsburgh-2020/

IMPERIAL DESERT DREAMS: Cotton Growing and Irrigation in Central Asia, 1860-1991 (V & R Unipress) explores the infrastru...
23/06/2020

IMPERIAL DESERT DREAMS: Cotton Growing and Irrigation in Central Asia, 1860-1991 (V & R Unipress) explores the infrastructural, technical, and environmental aspects of the history of cotton agriculture and irrigation in Soviet Central Asia. Based on published sources and archival research conducted in Tashkent, the book offers new insights into the nature of Russian Imperial and Soviet statecraft, as well as the technical and ideological motivations behind the transformation of the Central Asian environment. Julia Obertreis joins Nicholas Seay ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/julia-obertreis-imperial-desert-dreams-cotton-growing-and-irrigation-in-central-asia-1860-1991-v-and-r-unipress-2017/

In her new book, TATAR EMPIRE: Kazan’s Muslims and the Making of Imperial Russia (Indiana University Press), Danielle Ro...
28/04/2020

In her new book, TATAR EMPIRE: Kazan’s Muslims and the Making of Imperial Russia (Indiana University Press), Danielle Ross looks at how the Tatars of Kazan participated in the formation of the Russian empire through their various activities in trade, settlement, clerical work, intellectual culture, and trade. By centering on the Muslims in Kazan, Tatar Empire looks more closely at the role of Tatars in the creation of Russian empire, while simultaneously putting the history of the Volga-Ural Muslims in a broader, more global historical context. Ross is our guest on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/danielle-ross-tatar-empire-kazans-muslims-and-the-making-of-imperial-russia-indiana-up-2020/

Though ostensibly about bringing modernity, progress, and prosperity to the deserts, the transformation of Central Asia’...
17/04/2020

Though ostensibly about bringing modernity, progress, and prosperity to the deserts, the transformation of Central Asia’s landscapes through tsarist- and Soviet-era hydraulic projects bore the hallmarks of a colonial experiment.

In PIPE DREAMS: Water and Empire in Central Asia’s Aral Sea Basin (Cambridge University Press), Maya K. Peterson brings a fresh perspective to the history of Russia’s conquest and rule of Central Asia. She joins Steven Seegel ⬇️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/maya-peterson-pipe-dreams-water-and-empire-in-central-asias-aral-sea-basin-cambridge-up-2019/

THE CENTRAL ASIAN ECONOMIES in the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (Princeton University Press) looks at the economies of the five ...
28/02/2020

THE CENTRAL ASIAN ECONOMIES in the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (Princeton University Press) looks at the economies of the five former Soviet Republics of Kazkahstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, considering the different trajectories of each of the countries since the 1990s. 🎙️Richard Pomfret of the University of Adelaide discusses the book with Nick Seay on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/richard-pomfret-the-central-asian-economies-in-the-twenty-first-century-princeton-up-2019/

Using a form of multi-sited, ‘dialogic ethnography’ from linguistic anthropology, Charlene Makley's THE BATTLE for FORTU...
10/02/2020

Using a form of multi-sited, ‘dialogic ethnography’ from linguistic anthropology, Charlene Makley's THE BATTLE for FORTUNE: State-led Development, Personhood, and Power among Tibetans in China (Cornell University Press) considers Tibetans’ encounters with development projects as a historically situated interpretive politics, in which people negotiate the presence or absence of moral and authoritative persons and their associated jurisdictions and powers. 🎧↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/charlene-makley-the-battle-for-fortune-state-led-development-personhood-and-power-among-tibetans-in-china-cornell-up-2018/

Offering an opportunity to learn more about Uzbekistan's past and present, Mark Reese’s wonderful new translation of Abd...
06/02/2020

Offering an opportunity to learn more about Uzbekistan's past and present, Mark Reese’s wonderful new translation of Abdullah Qodiriy’s 1920s novel O'TKAN KUNLAR (BYGONE DAYS) opens a unique window on Central Asia, literature, and the triumphs and tragedies of modernizing societies more generally. Reese joins your host Nick Seay to fill us in on the project ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/abdullah-qodiriy-bygone-days-bowker-2019/

Klaus-Dieter Mathes and Michael R. Sheehy are the editors of THE OTHER EMPTINESS: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Disco...
23/12/2019

Klaus-Dieter Mathes and Michael R. Sheehy are the editors of THE OTHER EMPTINESS: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet (SUNY Press), a new volume that brings together leading international scholars on the subject of zhentong or "other-emptiness," the emptiness of everything other than the continuous luminous awareness that is one’s own enlightened nature.
Give their conversation with Sangseraima Ujeed a listen 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/m-sheehy-and-k-d-mathes-the-other-emptiness-rethinking-the-zhentong-buddhist-discourse-in-tibet-suny-press-2019/

Covering topics such as mobilization, deportations, forced labor and the role of propaganda, KAZAKHSTAN in WORLD WAR II:...
09/12/2019

Covering topics such as mobilization, deportations, forced labor and the role of propaganda, KAZAKHSTAN in WORLD WAR II: Mobilization and Ethnicity in the Soviet Empire (University Press of Kansas) uses archival materials, newspapers, and individual memoirs to examine the experience of the Kazakh Republic during the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic War. Nick Seay interviews author Robert J. Carmack ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/roberto-carmack-kazakhstan-in-world-war-ii-mobilization-and-ethnicity-in-the-soviet-empire-up-of-kansas-2019/

DARK SHADOWS: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan (I.B.Tauris) journeys into the recesses of a little known Central As...
25/10/2019

DARK SHADOWS: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan (I.B.Tauris) journeys into the recesses of a little known Central Asian nation on the frontier of tectonic shifts across Eurasia. Find out why post-Nazarbayev Kazakhstan is positioned at the crossroads of geopolitics that are likely to shape an emerging new world order as author and Almaty-based journalist Joanna Lillis joins us ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/joanna-lillis-dark-shadows-inside-the-secret-world-of-kazakhstan-i-b-tauris-2018/

FOOD of SINFUL DEMONS: Meat, Vegetarianism, and the limits of Buddhism in Tibet (Columbia University Press) is a wide-ra...
02/10/2019

FOOD of SINFUL DEMONS: Meat, Vegetarianism, and the limits of Buddhism in Tibet (Columbia University Press) is a wide-ranging, deeply-researched, and compassionate exploration of meat consumption and vegetarianism in Tibetan Buddhist culture and spiritual practice.

🎙️Author and Oregon State University religious studies professor Geoffrey Barstow is Sangseraima Ujeed's guest on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/geoffrey-barstow-food-of-sinful-demons-meat-vegetarianism-and-the-limits-of-buddhism-in-tibet-columbia-up-2018/

Jeff Sahadeo's new book, VOICES FROM THE SOVIET EDGE: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow (Cornell University Pres...
06/09/2019

Jeff Sahadeo's new book, VOICES FROM THE SOVIET EDGE: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow (Cornell University Press), looks at the migrant experiences of peoples from the Caucuses and Central Asia in the late Soviet and early Post-Soviet periods. Find out how they integrated with the locals, what sort of prejudices they faced, and to what extent they were welcomed as part of the Soviet brotherhood of peoples as Sahadeo joins Samantha Lomb ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/jeff-sahadeo-voices-from-the-soviet-edge-southern-migrants-in-leningrad-and-moscow-cornell-up-2019/

Drawn from an impressive array of literary, archaeological, and numismatic sources, THE EASTERN FRONTIER: Limits of Empi...
13/08/2019

Drawn from an impressive array of literary, archaeological, and numismatic sources, THE EASTERN FRONTIER: Limits of Empire in Late Antique and Early Medieval Central Asia (I.B.Tauris) takes an in-depth look at the frontier zone of the Sassanian, Umayyad, and Abbasid Empires across 900 years. Author and historian of the Islamic World Rob Haug joins your host Nick Seay ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/robert-haug-the-eastern-frontier-limits-of-empire-in-late-antique-and-early-medieval-central-asia-i-b-tauris-2019/

James Tharin Bradford‘s new book, POPPIES, POLITICS, and POWER: Afghanistan and the Global History of Drugs and Diplomac...
13/08/2019

James Tharin Bradford‘s new book, POPPIES, POLITICS, and POWER: Afghanistan and the Global History of Drugs and Diplomacy (Cornell University Press), reevaluates the Afghan state, o***m, and international drug regulation, offering a new perspective on this key aspect of the US/Afghan relationship. Check out the author's conversation with Lucas Richert ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/james-tharin-bradford-poppies-power-and-politics-afghanistan-and-the-global-history-of-drugs-and-diplomacy-cornell-up-2019/

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