Eurasian Crossroads

Eurasian Crossroads PDF

Author: James Millward

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2021-12-07

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 0231555598

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Since antiquity, the vast Central Eurasian region of Xinjiang, or Eastern Turkestan, has stood at the crossroads of China, India, the Middle East, and Europe, playing a pivotal role in the social, cultural, and political histories of Asia and the world. Today, it comprises one-sixth of the territory of the People’s Republic of China and borders India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia. Eurasian Crossroads is an engaging and comprehensive account of Xinjiang’s history and people from earliest times to the present day. Drawing on primary sources in several Asian and European languages, James A. Millward surveys Xinjiang’s rich environmental and cultural heritage as well as its historical and contemporary geopolitical significance. Xinjiang was once the hub of the Silk Road and the conduit through which Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam entered China. It was also a fulcrum where Sinic, steppe nomadic, Tibetan, and Islamic imperial realms engaged and struggled. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Han-dominated Chinese Communist Party has failed to include Xinjiang’s diverse indigenous Central Asian peoples. Its nationalistic visions have spurred domestic troubles that now affect the PRC’s foreign affairs and global ambitions. This revised and updated edition features new empirically grounded and balanced analysis of the latest developments in the region, focusing on the circumstances of the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Xinjiang peoples in the face of policies implemented by the Chinese Communist Party.

Eurasian Crossroads

Eurasian Crossroads PDF

Author: James Millward

Publisher:

Published: 2020-06-25

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781787383340

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"Eurasian Crossroads" is the first comprehensive history of Xinjiang, the vast central Eurasian region bordering India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia. Forming one-sixth of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Xinjiang stands at the crossroads between China, India, the Mediterranean, and Russia and has, since the Bronze Age, played a pivotal role in the social, cultural, and political development of Asia and the world. Xinjiang's population comprises Kazakhs, Kirghiz, and Uighurs, all Turkic Muslim peoples, as well as Han Chinese, and competing Chinese and Turkic nationalist visions boiled over into insurrection in 2009. This book provides the essential historical and cultural background to this fascinating part of the world. This new edition brings the story of the Uighurs up to date.

Crossroads of Cuisine

Crossroads of Cuisine PDF

Author: Paul David Buell

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-11-04

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9004432108

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Crossroads of Cuisine offers history of food and cultural exchanges in and around Central Asia. It discusses geographical base, and offers historical and cultural overview. A photo essay binds it all together. The book offers new views of the past.

The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction

The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction PDF

Author: James A. Millward

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-04-10

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 0199323852

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The phrase "silk road" evokes vivid scenes of merchants leading camel caravans across vast stretches to trade exotic goods in glittering Oriental bazaars, of pilgrims braving bandits and frozen mountain passes to spread their faith across Asia. Looking at the reality behind these images, this Very Short Introduction illuminates the historical background against which the silk road flourished, shedding light on the importance of old-world cultural exchange to Eurasian and world history. On the one hand, historian James A. Millward treats the silk road broadly, to stand in for the cross-cultural communication between peoples across the Eurasian continent since at least the Neolithic era. On the other, he highlights specific examples of goods and ideas exchanged between the Mediterranean, Persia, India, and China, along with the significance of these exchanges. While including silks, spices, and travelers' tales of colorful locales, the book explains the dynamics of Central Eurasian history that promoted Silk Road interactions--especially the role of nomad empires--highlighting the importance of the biological, technological, artistic, intellectual, and religious interchanges across the continent. Millward shows that these exchanges had a profound effect on the old world that was akin to, if not on the scale of, modern globalization. He also disputes the idea that the silk road declined after the collapse of the Mongol empire or the opening of direct sea routes from Europe to Asia, showing how silk road phenomena continued through the early modern and modern expansion of the Russian and Chinese states across Central Asia. Millward concludes that the idea of the silk road has remained powerful, not only as a popular name for boutiques and restaurants, but also in modern politics and diplomacy, such as U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's "Silk Road Initiative" for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

The Tree That Bleeds

The Tree That Bleeds PDF

Author: Nick Holdstock

Publisher: Luath Press Ltd

Published: 2013-07-22

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1909912328

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In 1997 a small town in a remote part of China was shaken by violent protests that led to the imposition of martial law. Some said it was a peaceful demonstration that was brutally suppressed by the government; others that it was an act of terrorism. When Nick Holdstock arrived in 2001, the town was still bitterly divided. BACK COVER: 'There is still much that is unclear about what actually happened during that violent week in July 2009. But however terrible its cost - whether it was a massacre of peaceful protestors, an orchestrated episode of violence, or something in between - it was not without precedent.' NICK HOLDSTOCK In 1997 a small town in a remote part of China was shaken by violent protests that led to the imposition of martial law. Some said it was a peaceful demonstration that was brutally suppressed by the government; others that it was an act of terrorism. When Nick Holdstock arrived in 2001, the town was still bitterly divided. The main resentment was between the Uighurs (an ethnic minority in the region) and the Han (the ethnic majority in China). While living in Xinjiang, Holdstock was confronted with the political, economic and religious sources of conflict between these different communities, which would later result in the terrible violence of July 2009, when hundreds died in further riots in the region. The Tree that Bleeds is a book about what happens when people stop believing their government will listen.

Empires of Ancient Eurasia

Empires of Ancient Eurasia PDF

Author: Craig Benjamin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-05-03

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1107114969

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Introduces a crucial period of world history when the vast exchange network of the Silk Roads connected most of Eurasia.

Print Culture at the Crossroads

Print Culture at the Crossroads PDF

Author: Elizabeth Dillenburg

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-08-30

Total Pages: 566

ISBN-13: 9004462341

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This book investigates the importance of printing in early-modern Central Europe, revealing a complicated web of connections linking printers and scholars, Jews and Christians, from the Baltic to the Adriatic.

Mirrorlands

Mirrorlands PDF

Author: Ed Pulford

Publisher: Hurst & Company

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1787381382

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Mirrorlands is a journey through space and time to the meeting points of Russia and China, the world's largest and most populous countries. Charting an unconventional course southeast through Siberia, Inner Mongolia, the Russian Far East and Manchuria, anthropologist and linguist Ed Pulford sketches a rich series of encounters with people and places unknown not only to outsiders, but also to most residents of the capital cities where his journey begins and ends. What Russia and China have in common goes much deeper than their status as authoritarian post-socialist states or perceived menaces to Western hegemony. Their shared history can only fully be appreciated from an intimately local, borderland perspective. Along remote roads, rivers and railways, in cosmopolitan cities and indigenous villages of the northeast Asian frontiers, Pulford maps the strikingly similar ways in which these two vast empires have ruled their Eurasian domains, before, during and after socialism. With great cultural nuance, Mirrorlands thoughtfully evokes the diverse daily interactions between residents of the Russia-China borderlands, and their resulting visions of "Europe" and "Asia." It is a vivid portrait of centuries of cross-border encounter, mimicry and conflict, key to understanding the global place and identity of two leading world powers.

Black Wind, White Snow

Black Wind, White Snow PDF

Author: Charles Clover

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2022-07-26

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0300269250

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A fascinating study of the root motivations behind the political activities and philosophies of Putin’s government in Russia “Part intellectual history, part portrait gallery . . . Black Wind, White Snow traces the background to Putin’s ideas with verve and clarity.”—Geoffrey Hosking, Financial Times “Required reading. This is a vivid, panoramic history of bad ideas, chasing the metastasis of the doctrine known as Eurasianism. . . . Reading Charles Clover will help you understand the world of lies and delusions that is Eurasia.”—Ben Judah, Standpoint Charles Clover, award-winning journalist and former Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, here analyzes the idea of "Eurasianism," a theory of Russian national identity based on ethnicity and geography. Clover traces Eurasianism’s origins in the writings of white Russian exiles in 1920s Europe, through Siberia’s Gulag archipelago in the 1950s, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and up to its steady infiltration of the governing elite around Vladimir Putin. This eye-opening analysis pieces together the evidence for Eurasianism’s place at the heart of Kremlin thinking today and explores its impact on recent events, the annexation of Crimea, and the rise in Russia of anti-Western paranoia and imperialist rhetoric, as well as Putin’s sometimes perplexing political actions and ambitions. Based on extensive research and dozens of interviews with Putin’s close advisers, this quietly explosive story will be essential reading for anyone concerned with Russia’s past century, and its future.

Beyond the Pass

Beyond the Pass PDF

Author: James A. Millward

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1998-06-01

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 0804797927

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As analysis of the revenue available to Qing garrisons in Xinjiang reveals, imperial control over the region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries depended upon sizeable yearly subsidies from China. In an effort to satisfy criticism of their expansion into Xinjiang and make the territory pay for itself, the Qing court permitted local authorities great latitude in fiscal matters and encouraged the presence of Han and Chinese Muslim merchants. At the same time, the court recognized the potential for unrest posed by Chinese mercantile penetration of this Muslim, Turkic-speaking area. They consequently attempted, through administrative and legal means, to defend the native Uyghur population against economic depredation. This ethnic policy reflected a conception of the realm that was not Sinocentric, but rather placed the Uyghur on a par with Han Chinese. Both this ethnic policy and Xinjiang’s place in the realm shifted following a series of invasions from western Turkestan starting in the 1820’s. Because of the economic importance of Chinese merchants and the efficacy of merchant militia in Xinjiang, the Qing court revised its policies in their favor, for the first time allowing permanent Han settlement in the area. At the same time, the court began to advocate provincehood and the Sinicization of Xinjiang as a resolution to the perennial security problem. These shifts, the author argues, marked the beginning of a reconception of China to include Inner Asian lands and peoples—a notion that would, by the twentieth century, become a deeply held tenet of Chinese nationalism.

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