The peoples of Greater Central Asia - not only Inner Asian states of Soviet Union but also those who share similar heritages in adjacent countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran, and the Chinese province of Xinjiang - have been drawn into more direct and immediate contact since the Soviet collapse. Infrastructural improvements, and the race by the great powers for access to the region's vital natural resources, have allowed these peoples to develop closer ties with each other and the wider world, creating new interdependencies, and fresh opportunities for interaction and the exercise of influence. They are being integrated into a new, wider economic and political region which is increasingly significant in world affairs, owing to its strategically central location, and its complex and uncertain politics. However, most of its inhabitants are pre-eminently concerned with familial and local affairs. This work examines the viewpoints and concerns of a selection of groups in terms of four issues: government repression, ethnic group perspectives, devices of mutual support, and informal grounds of authority and influence. Responding to a need for in-depth studies concerning the social structures and practices in the region, the book examines trends and issues from the point of view of scholars who have lived and worked "on the ground" and have sought to understand the conditions and concerns of people in rural as well as urban settings. It provides a distinctive and timely perspective on this vital part of the world.

The peoples of Greater Central Asia - not only Inner Asian states of Soviet Union but also those who share similar heritages in adjacent countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran, and the Chinese province of Xinjiang - have been drawn into more direct and immediate contact since the Soviet collapse. Infrastructural improvements, and the race by the great powers for access to the region's vital natural resources, have allowed these peoples to develop closer ties with each other and the wider world, creating new interdependencies, and fresh opportunities for interaction and the exercise of influence. They are being integrated into a new, wider economic and political region which is increasingly significant in world affairs, owing to its strategically central location, and its complex and uncertain politics. However, most of its inhabitants are pre-eminently concerned with familial and local affairs. This work examines the viewpoints and concerns of a selection of groups in terms of four issues: government repression, ethnic group perspectives, devices of mutual support, and informal grounds of authority and influence. Responding to a need for in-depth studies concerning the social structures and practices in the region, the book examines trends and issues from the point of view of scholars who have lived and worked "on the ground" and have sought to understand the conditions and concerns of people in rural as well as urban settings. It provides a distinctive and timely perspective on this vital part of the world.

When originally published in 1984, Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan provided the first focused consideration of the 1978 Saur Revolution and the subsequent Soviet invasion and occupation of the country. Nearly four decades later, its conclusions remain crucial to understanding Afghanistan today. In this much-anticipated re-release, Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan offers an opportunity for fresh insight into the antecedents of the nation's enduring conflicts. A new foreword by editors M. Nazif Shahrani and Robert L. Canfield contextualizes this collection, which relies on extensive fieldwork in the years leading up to the Soviet invasion. Specific tribal, ethnic, and gender groups are considered within the context of their region, and contributors discuss local responses to government decrees, Islamic-inspired grassroots activism, and interpretations of jihad outside of Kabul. Long recognized as a vital ethnographic text in Afghan studies, Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan provides an extraordinary chance to experience the diversity of the Afghan people on the cusp of irrevocable change and to understand what they expected of the years ahead.

The Islamic culture that developed in the ninth and tenth centuries AD in what is now Eastern Iran was to have a significant impact on most Muslims of west, south and central Asia. Under the patronage of Persianized Turkic Muslim rulers, the culture spread westward to the Mediterranean and eastward into India. Up to the fifteenth century AD, Turko-Persia represented a distinctive variant of Islamic life and thought in these regions, particularly among the elite, but thereafter regional variants started to emerge. This collection of essays comprises an historical survey of the culture, a chronology of major developments in the region from the rise of the Persian empire before Islam up to the present, and six chapters by eminent authorities on the region, focusing on the importance of literature; the tension between central and peripheral institutions in Turko-Persian societies; and the confrontation of the Turko-Persian Islamicate world with the European world.