An updated edition of the acclaimed history of Russia, this new volume includes a wealth of material on events of the last decade. When first published, Charles Ziegler's The History of Russia was acclaimed as a source of information not easily found elsewhere, and as "clear, balanced, and insightful," by Rajan Menon of Lehigh University. Now Ziegler's remarkable volume returns, fully updated to be the work of choice for readers looking for an introduction to the history of the world's largest country. The History of Russia: Second Edition moves from the 10th-century founding of Kievan Rus to the czars to the Communist Era to the present, with particular emphasis on the fall of the Soviet Union and the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin. In addition to a new chapter on the tumultuous last decade, this edition features an updated introduction and an expanded chapter on the Yeltsin Era.

Donald Trump and the Trump administration radically altered a number of international policies and behaviors of the United States, and changed the position of the United States on many international agreements, including environmental agreements, trade agreements, military agreements, and human rights agreements. This book studies of the effect of those actions, and Trump's style of behavior, on the standing of the United States in the global community. In eighteen individual case studies the authors examine traditional relationships between their countries and the United States prior to the Trump election, including areas of tension and traditional areas of agreement and cooperation. They address expectations about what the outcome of the 2016 American election would be, and the immediate reaction to the election's outcome. They explore how responses to American policies varied in their country, and whether any American initiatives were especially controversial. And they explore how the relations between their nation and the United States changed over the Trump years. The authors reflect on whether anything was permanently lost or gained by the end of the Trump years, and speculate on the lasting consequences of Trump foreign policies and international behavior for America's standing overseas.

The five Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan constitute an area of increasing importance in global politics. The region currently serves as the main route for transporting American and NATO supplies and personnel into Afghanistan. Its Turkic Muslim peoples share ethnic and religious roots with China's Uighurs in neighboring Xinjiang, where some Uighurs have connections to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, fueling Beijing's already acute fears of terrorism and separatism.

Perhaps most importantly, the Caspian basin holds immense reserves of oil and natural gas. Countries rich in hydrocarbons -- like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- can benefit greatly from this wealth, but often they must rely on foreign companies (usually backed by foreign governments) to develop these resources. Revolts in Kyrgyzstan (in 2005 and 2010) and Uzbekistan (in 2005); Tajikistan's civil war (in the 1990s); and continued terrorist incidents (2010--2011), strikes, and suicide bombings in Kazakhstan (in 2011) have contributed to concerns about stability in the region.

In Civil Society and Politics in Central Asia, a prominent group of scholars assesses both the area's manifold problems and its emerging potential, examining the often uneasy relationship between its states and the societies they govern. A meticulously in-depth study, the volume demonstrates the fascinating cultural complexity and diversity of Central Asia. Small, landlocked, and surrounded by larger powers, Central Asian nations have become adept at playing their neighbors against each other in order to maximize their own abilities to maneuver. The essays in this book look beyond the surface of Central Asian politics to discover the forces that are working for political change and continuity in this critical region of the world.

In this book Charles Ziegler develops the concept of learning in foreign policy by exploring the link between Mikhail Gorbachev's domestic reforms and the radical transformation of Soviet relations with North-east Asia in the 1980s. He argues that, although international factors may have played a role, it was pressures for domestic change, and economic reform in particular, which had the greatest impact on Soviet thinking. The history of Soviet relations with North-east Asia is briefly traced, highlighting the extent to which ideology impeded foreign policy learning under Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev. The author then turns to Gorbachev's determined efforts to reverse thirty years of Sino-Soviet hostility, his mixed record on Soviet-Japanese relations, the turnaround in Soviet policy toward South Korea, and changing Soviet national security interests in the Far East and Western Pacific.