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"Islamic Shangri-La transports readers into the heart of the Himalayas by tracing the rise of the Tibetan Muslim (Khache) community from the early 17th century to the present. Over the past four centuries, the Tibetan Muslims advised several Dalai Lamas, contributed to Tibetan music and literature, and engaged in transregional trade with many of Tibet?s neighbors. Deftly blending contemporary media accounts and interviews with archival documents, this book brings the frustrations and hopes of Ti...

This book documents the extraordinarily significant transfers and cultural diffusion between the Mongol Yuan Dynasty of China and Central and West Asia, which had a broad impact on Eurasian history in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Yuan era witnessed perhaps the greatest inter-civilisational contacts in world history and has thus begun to attract the attention of both scholars and the general public. This volume offers tangible evidence of the Western and Central Asian influences, via the Mong...

Cordesman (strategy, Center for Strategic Studies) identifies lessons that the US government can use to enhance its steamroller drive through the region. He does not provide an index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

In this title, an Afghan-American journalist offers a revealing look inside a country torn apart - from corrupt officials to warlords and child brides - while revisiting her own family's deep roots to the land.

Using a synthetic narrative approach, this ambitious work uses the lens of multipolarity to analyse Tang China's (618-907) relations with Turkestan; the Korean states of Koguryo, Silla, and Paekche; the state of Parhae in Manchuria; and the Nanzhao and Tibetan kingdoms. Without any one entity able to dominate Asia's geopolitical landscape, the author argues that relations among these countries were quite fluid and dynamic-an interpretation that departs markedly from the prevalent view of China f...

Featuring texts by leading scholars of the history and culture of medieval Armenia, this book offers an in-depth look at its art, trade, and religious traditions The papers in this volume, first presented at an international symposium celebrating The Met's blockbuster 2018 exhibition, Armenia!, explore the art and culture of a civilization that served as a pivotal crossroads on the border between East and West. Contributors address Armenia's roles in facilitating exchange with the Mongol, Otto...

Sources of Vietnamese Tradition provides an essential guide to two thousand years of Vietnamese history and a comprehensive overview of the society and state of Vietnam. Strategic selections illuminate key figures, issues, and events while building a thematic portrait of the country's developing territory, politics, culture, and relations with neighbors. The volume showcases Vietnam's remarkable independence in the face of Chinese and other external pressures and respects the complexity of the V...

After the recent toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the important but overlooked ex-Soviet states of Central Asia-Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan-briefly became key players in the war on terror. Military and economic aid from America and other Western countries poured into the region on the assumption that stability and greater democratization would be the result. Only a few years later, however, the West's strategy to exert geopolitical influence in the reg...

A comprehensive history of the Sino-Russian border, one of the longest and most important land borders in the worldThe Sino-Russian border, once the world's longest land border, has received scant attention in histories about the margins of empires. Beyond the Steppe Frontier rectifies this by exploring the demarcation's remarkable transformation-from a vaguely marked frontier in the seventeenth century to its twentieth-century incarnation as a tightly patrolled barrier girded by watchtowers, ba...

The Soviet invasion of its neighbour Afghanistan in December 1979 sparked a bloody nine-year conflict in that country until Soviet forces withdrew in 1988-89, dooming the communist Afghanistan government to defeat at the hands of the Mujahideen, the Afghan popular resistance backed by the USA and other powers. The Soviet invasion had enormous implications on the global stage; it prompted the US Senate to refuse to ratify the hard-won SALT II arms-limitation treaty, and the USA and 64 other count...

Situated north of the Himalayas, Tibet is famous for its unique culture and its controversial assimilation into modern China. Yet Tibet in the twenty-first century can only be properly understood in the context of its extraordinary history. Sam van Schaik brings the history of Tibet to life by telling the stories of the people involved, from the glory days of the Tibetan empire in the seventh century through to the present day. He explores the emergence of Tibetan Buddhism and the rise of the Da...