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Book reviews

Palgrave concise historical atlas of Central Asia, by R. Abazov, New York, Palgrave

Macmillan, 2008, 144 pp., £14.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-1403975423

An affordable atlas of Central Asia is hard to find. In an attempt to fill this niche, Rafis Abazov has

compiled an atlas of the region in the format offered by the Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas

series. Its avowed purpose is ‘to provide students and the general public with an effective tool

that will help them visualize historical changes in the Central Asian region’ (p. viii). Although

Peter Rutland’s back-cover review suggests that it may serve regional scholars, it is clearly

designed to reach a broader public with limited knowledge of Central Asia. With a total of 50

maps, the atlas is divided into six sections: Introductory Maps, Early History, the Islamic

Golden Age, The Mongols and the Decline of Central Asia, The Era of Colonialism and

Nation-State Building, and Post-Communism and Independence. Each map is accompanied by

a one-page text describing historical events during the given period. Due to the space restrictions

of the Palgrave series, the history is necessarily painted in broad strokes – a limitation acknowl-

edged by the author in the preface. More interested readers are thus referred to a ‘concise’ (seven-

and-a-half-page-long) bibliography of more specialized references at the end of the text.

One of the most attractive elements of the Atlas of Central Asia is that it is markedly less

expensive than other competitors, such as Yuri Bregel’s (2003) An historical atlas of Central

Asia, which is nearly 20 times the price. Abazov’s atlas is also unique in that it dedicates 11

maps to the post-independence period of Central Asia’s history. Each of the five republics has

a map and accompanying description, while others address ‘Interethnic conflicts and the collapse

of the USSR’ (Map 40), ‘Ethnic composition and major territorial disputes’ (Map 46), ‘Central

Asia and the war on international terrorism’ (Map 47), ‘Border disputes in the Farghona valley’

(Map 48), ‘Major oil and gas pipeline proposals’ (Map 49), and ‘Transportation routes’ (Map

50). With these particular maps, the author pays explicit attention to popular topics in the

region’s contemporary history. Incorporating these topics with the region’s historical treatment

makes for a more holistic study than nearly any other atlas of Central Asia.

Cartographically, the atlas follows the format of other Palgrave Concise atlases, with maps only

produced in two colours (greens and greys). Abazov explains that this is an issue of cost-effectiveness

and accessibility of the information to the general public (p. viii). This is unfortunate because the maps

are simply too basic to be of much use to the regional scholar, and probably the general public as well.

Setting aside the problem of the historical and linguistic evolution of toponyms, which the author

acknowledges as a major difficulty in developing such a historical atlas, there are several disconcerting

cartographic omissions and mistakes. For example, the Aral Sea is depicted in all 50 maps at its 1960

size. This could be excusable for the historical maps given the difficulty of ascertaining the Sea’s size

at those times, but it is not excusable for the contemporary maps, given that the Aral Sea is presently

only 10% of the 1960 size. Many maps also use arrows or lines to display movements of people, war

campaigns or trade routes. Most are often too broad to impart much information. Of the 50 maps, 44

are exactly the same size, covering exactly the same area. This means that important information

about the Parthian or Timurid empires, for example, is excluded, simply because their influence

lay further south than the cartographer’s narrow focus area. Although it may be tempting to write

off these oversights as a limitation of the Palgrave series, one can find much more sophisticated

and varied maps in The Palgrave concise historical atlas of Eastern Europe (Hupchick and

Cox 2001).

ISSN 0263-4937 print/ISSN 1465-3354 online

http://www.informaworld.com

Central Asian Survey

Vol. 28, No. 3, September 2009, 335–345

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The text accompanying the maps faces strict length limitations, leaving it extremely general.

The writing of history, however limited, is seldom neutral – and the Atlas of Central Asia

clearly articulates a sensational view of the region. One is first alerted to certain ideological under-

pinnings of the project when the text describing ‘Map 1: Physical geography’ describes the region in

the context of Halford Mackinder’s Heartland Theory – a geopolitical vision that is far from an

objective description of Central Asia’s physical geography. With an eye to highlighting the geopo-

litical (strategic) importance of the region, Abazov tells the history of great battles, warfare, and

empires. Although he explains in the preface that space limitations mean that he can only cover

‘major events and changes’, the texts are symptomatic of an avowedly ‘objective’ style of

writing geography and history. In such a view, geography is a tabula rasa or theatrical stage on

which the real drama, Politics and History, unfolds. The effect of Abazov’s strong focus on

Central Asia’s history of warfare is to create an image of it as a violent and unstable region.

This textual and cartographic focus on warfare also comes at the expense of attention to

everyday life of the non-elites, the economic and social organization of society. As with the

example of the Aral Sea, the text is understandably thin further back in time, but strange over-

sights in terms of more recent history abound. For example, Russian colonization of Central Asia

(Maps 31 and 32) is depicted almost wholly positively, neglecting mention of the violence done

to local populations in the process. The description of administrative structures since the Tsarist

rule of Central Asia also omits any mention of Muslim Spiritual Boards and their successor insti-

tutions in the Soviet and independence eras. The treatment of the Bolshevik revolution and con-

comitant political changes in the early Soviet Union (Maps 34–38) strangely omits the role of

the Jadids in their early cooperation with the Bolsheviks. It absolutely fails to mention the hujum

that followed, in which they, and Islam in general, were subject to severe assault. Given the

author’s early declaration of the region’s central importance in religious exchange (Map 5),

this neglect of religion throughout is puzzling. Equally puzzling is the description of Central

Asia under the Soviet Union after 1936, which is limited to a one-page description of ‘Economic

changes in Central Asia’ (Map 39).

Although an ambitious project, The Palgrave concise historical atlas of Central Asia may dis-

appoint the critical scholar looking for a nuanced view of the region’s geography. It is easy to

accept that it is simply not designed to meet the needs of regional scholars, but the image it

paints of Central Asia for the general public is somewhat disconcerting. That is to say, it confirms

popular images of the region as a site of interest primarily because of its violent history and rel-

evance to current security concerns about interethnic conflict (Map 40) and oil and gas supplies

(Map 49). Although this may serve to engage popular attention, it is not a useful starting place

for encouraging the nuanced views of Central Asia needed to understand its complexities and

role in contemporary geopolitics. Given that the region is often a black hole in the mental maps

of those in the West, Abazov’s Atlas of Central Asia highlights a niche that could just as easily

be illuminated with critical accounts of the region’s unique and engaging history and geography.

References

Hupchick, D.P. and Cox, H.E., 2001. The Palgrave concise historical atlas of Eastern Europe, New York:Palgrave.

Bregel, Y., 2003. An historical atlas of Central Asia. Boston: Brill.

Natalie R. Koch

University of Colorado at Boulder

Email: Natalie.Koch@colorado.edu

# 2009, Natalie R. Koch

DOI: 10.1080/02634930903421889

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‘Religion is not so strong here’: Muslim religious life in Khorezm after socialism, by Krisztina

Kehl-Bodrogi, Berlin, Lit Verlag, 2008, 251 pp.,þ22 platesþ1 map, E24.90, ISBN 978-3-8258-

9909-7

In the 1990s, the subject of militant Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia was a major focus of

Western political and scholarly discussion, due largely to religious developments in Uzbekistan

and the civil war in Tajikistan. In recent years, scholarly interest has shifted from the study of

‘political Islam’ to the study of ‘practical Islam’ in post-Soviet Central Asia. This book

extends this literature around ‘local’ or ‘customary’ Islam in Central Asia. It focuses on the

impact of post-Soviet political transformations on attitudes towards Islam in the province of

Khorezm, western Uzbekistan. The author’s ethnographic data reveals ‘a great deal of diversity

in the religious orientation and practices of Khorezmians. . .’ (p. 226). The author argues against

the assumption that Islam has the same form and presence in all regions of post-Soviet

Uzbekistan.

The core material presented in this book is based on nine months of fieldwork conducted

between 2004–2006, and includes interviews with community members and clergy, informal

discussions, and participant observation of life-cycle celebrations, shrine visitations, and

healing rituals.

The book’s main argument is that Khorezmians historically and traditionally view them-

selves as being less religious than other Uzbeks, particularly those in the Ferghana Valley.

This is due to the ‘relative laxity in the observance of the normative Islamic practices prescribed

by the Shari’a’ (p. 83). It is argued that the typical Muslim from Khorezm ‘understands and prac-

tices religion in ways that are traditional, rather than fundamentalist’ (p. 38). The author finds it

suitable to use the local term musulmonchilik (Muslimness) when discussing religious life in

Khorezm because the word ‘Islam’ is not used much in everyday religious discourse. Further-

more, the word Islam is usually associated with ‘great tradition’ or fundamentalism.

In her overview of Soviet policy towards Islam in Central Asia, the author mentions two key

measures of the Soviet central government: the 1929 Law on Religious Associations and the

establishment of the Muslim Spiritual Board of Central Asia or SADUM in 1943 in Tashkent.

The Soviets considered Islam as ‘the most serious obstacle’ for socialist modernization and

destroyed Islam’s institutional and educational institutions along with religious functionaries.

However, allowances were made for a controllable, ‘official Islam’. In 1943, SADUM was

established in Central Asia to oversee two ‘official’ Islamic institutions in Bukhara and Tashk-

ent. State-supported Islam served state needs, while ‘unofficial’ Islam and clergy (eshans,

bakhshi healers, and shixs, shrine guardians), not approved by SADUM, retreated into the

private religious life of people.

The author values Soviet ethnographic accounts of religion for their rich content, but criti-

cizes their theoretical basis and methodology as politically biased. Soviet scholars dismissed all

forms of traditional and religious life as survivals (perezhitki) of the past, and divided Islam into

‘real’ Islam and that ‘popular’ religion which does not conform to canonical texts. It is further

argued that Soviet ethnographic studies focused on shamanism or ‘Islamized shamanism’ to

avoid the politically sensitive issue of Islam, and researchers gathered their data primarily

from older people. This approach, in the author’s opinion, prevented scholars from gaining

deeper knowledge about Islam in everyday life. Unlike Soviet studies of Islam, Kehl-Bodrogi

tries to examine the meaning(s) of Islam in Khorezm from the native perspective and argues

that people do not make a clear-cut distinction between ‘real’ and ‘popular’ Islam. She is critical

of labelling Islam in Central Asia as ‘Soviet Islam’ and measuring the religiosity of people

against the ‘abstract, ideal of Islam’.

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Chapter 2 discusses Islam’s retreat from public space during major socio-political transform-

ations before World War II and its reassertion into public space in the years immediately follow-

ing the Soviet collapse. In post-Soviet Uzbekistan, it is argued that President Karimov presented

Islam as a part of Uzbek national heritage to legitimize his power and distance himself from

Soviet atheist propaganda. Citing Karimov’s speeches and publications, the author argues that

in Uzbek official discourse ‘Islam is not referred to as a divinely revealed religion addressing

all mankind but rather as cultural and historical heritage. . .’ (p. 31). He describes ‘“Good”

Islam as ‘moderate, non-political, and in harmony with Uzbek mentality and traditions’

(pp. 37-38), and justifies his authoritarian regime with reference to ‘the impending danger of

militant Islam’.

Chapter 3 is about the province of Khorezm and its people. Ninety-five percent of people in

Khorezm consider themselves ethnically Uzbek with several sub-groups. Khorezmians are mar-

ginalized by other Uzbeks due to their dialect and physical appearance. The Khorezmian idiom,

Xorazmcha is regarded to be ‘an impure, backward form of Uzbek’ and closer to Turkmen. The

author argues that ‘the identification of all Khorezmians as Uzbeks . . . is the result of Soviet

nation-building policy.’ The author describes Khorezm as the most traditional region of Uzbeki-

stan and asserts that Soviet modernization had little impact on this region due to its peripheral

location. Khorezmians continue to lead their traditional life, practising gender segregation and

the early marriage of girls, and the wearing of traditional dress. The author pays special attention

to the ‘traditional patterns of gender hierarchy’ and asserts that ‘women are expected to be

modest, quiet, hard working, and above all, respectful and servile towards men, particularly

their male relatives and husbands’(p. 64).

Chapter 4 argues that despite the fact that the Uzbek government officially condemns the

anti-Islamic policy of the Soviets, many Khorezmians feel nostalgic about the socialist era

because they felt secure about their socio-economic life. The Soviet state did not interfere

with people’s private religious lives as long as they did not make a public issue of religion.

People in general bought into the Soviet ‘ideology of secularism’ considering religion as a ‘per-

sonal matter of private consciousness’. The author points out that those regions which histori-

cally did not have ‘mosque-based religiosity’ including Turkmenistan and Khorezm did not

consider the destruction of mosques by Soviets to be ‘a great loss’. The chapter then describes

how Khorezm experienced a religious upsurge following the Soviet collapse, despite its claim of

being traditionally less religious. New mosques were built and saints’ tombs were renovated.

Many people began observing the Five Pillars of Islam and young women started wearing

hijob on streets, at universities, and in schools.

Chapter 5 describes the ‘main contours of religious life’ in Khorezm manifested in life-cycle

events such as birth, male child circumcision, marriage and death. By examining the observance

of the five tenets of Islam the author shows how most Khorezmians do not make a clear-cut dis-

tinction between orthodox Islamic beliefs and practices and traditional ones. Although the

majority of Khorezmians cannot list all five Pillars, it is argued Islam fosters social and moral

values such as respecting the elderly, honesty, kindness, and practices such as remembering

the deceased relatives’ spirits by reciting the Quran and shrine visitation. Most people consider

regular prayer as an activity for elderly people who have more free time and, being closer to

death, more cause to worry about the afterlife. Fasting during Ramadan is the most widely

observed of the Five Pillars in Khorezm, but the fasting period does not have an impact on

the flow of daily activities. The o’iz ochar, the breaking of the fast in the evening satisfies

‘social rather than religious needs’, for it is a social event where both those who fast and

those who do not fast are invited. The author also addresses the socio-economic aspect of

life-cycle events and notes that official authorities, including Karimov, have tried to stop

these large-scale celebrations that cause economic hardship for poorer families. Purist

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Muslims condemn these events for contradicting the teachings of Islam. However, these prac-

tices ‘provide the opportunity for maintaining and reinforcing social relations of mutual obli-

gation and for affirming the hosts’ status in society’ (p. 99).

As an anthropological work based on field research, this book lacks one essential piece of

information: the researcher’s fieldwork experience. Discussion of field methods is a common

practice in current anthropological research. The discussion of her fieldwork experience at

greater length would have enriched the book’s content, providing both insight into the impact

of the researcher on the information collected and ideas for other researchers. For example,

the reader is left wondering to what extent the researcher was actually able to observe and par-

ticipate in some sensitive customs, such as those connected to death. Furthermore, the author

does not discuss what is arguably the most distinctive marker of Khorezmian cultural identity:

music and dance. Khorezmian traditional dance, performed by both men and women, has a very

distinct style and people in Uzbekistan enjoy watching and dancing to such music, especially to

the famous lazgi. However, these omissions do not necessarily undermine the book’s value. It is

well structured, provides first-hand ethnographic material, and is a valuable source for scholars

on local meanings of Islam or Muslimness in Central Asia.

Elmira Kochumkulova

University of Central Asia

Email: elmira.kuchumkulova@ucentralasia.org

# 2009, Elmira Kochumkulova

DOI: 10.1080/02634930903421897

The prehistory of the Silk Route, by E.E. Kuzmina, and edited by V.H. Mair, Philadelphia, Uni-

versity of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, xiiþ248 pp.þ15 mapsþ57 figures, £42.50/US$65.00

(hardback) ISBN 978-0-8122-4041-2

This book presents a synthesis in English of years of research into Indo-European prehistory con-

ducted by the eminent Russian archaeologist, Elena Kuzmina. She explores the cultural evol-

ution of prehistoric Indo-European populations from regions strung along the Silk Route. In

her narrative she combines archaeological research with data collected from the fields of geogra-

phy, ecology, physical anthropology and linguistics which are largely derived from Russian-

language scholarship not easily accessible in the West. Kuzmina focuses upon a wide range

of archaeological cultures from Europe and Asia Minor to the southern Urals and Central

Asia that date from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (the 5th to the 2nd millennia BC) and are

believed to have spoken Indo-European languages. During this timeframe there were significant

technological and economic developments, such as agriculture, pastoralism, wheeled vehicles,

horse-riding and metallurgy, all of which spread across Eurasia and provided the necessary pre-

conditions for the Silk Route to flourish in later times.

Chapter 1 begins with a general overview of the fluctuating climatic and ecological con-

ditions of the Eurasian steppes between 6000–1000 BC. The formation of present-day ecological

zones (i.e. steppes, desert steppes) began about 6000 BC during the Neolithic era. Notably, a

period of increased aridity started around 2000 BC and expanded the desert zones around the

Caspian Sea, while steppe areas spread across the southern Urals around 1500 BC. After

setting out the background information on the development of the steppes, Kuzmina then pro-

ceeds to outline her criteria for the identification of Indo-European archaeological cultures

that flourished within these regions throughout the remainder of the book.

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Starting in the west and working towards the east she turns to the cultures of the Ponto-

Caspian Steppe, dating from the 5th to the 2nd millennia BC, in Chapter 2. Kuzmina starts

with outlining the key innovations in the 5th millennium BC of agriculture and stock-breeding,

often referred to as the ‘Neolithic revolution’. She then shifts her attention to the regions

between the Dnieper and southern Urals which are considered to be strong contenders for

centres where the horse was first domesticated. Horse husbandry made a tremendous impact

upon the peoples of subsequent ages and its effects can be seen in pastoralism, transportation

technology and warfare. The theories and evidence she presents, however, are slightly dated

as there has been a steady increase in the publication of equid studies over the past ten years

which could also have been discussed (e.g. Olsen et al. 2006, Zeder et al. 2006). The chapter

concludes with a summary of the development of the wheeled transport, such as carts and

chariots, which facilitated the migration of communities across vast territories.

In Chapter 3 the focus moves to the development of the Andronovo archaeological culture

which defines the Bronze Age of the Central Asian steppes. The Andronovo are believed to

have spoken an early form of Indo-Iranian language and thus their spread is of keen interest

to scholars searching for the origins of populations still referred to in some quarters as the

‘Indo-Aryans’. The term ‘Andronovo’ designates an archaeological complex that spread

from the southern Urals regions during the 2nd millennium BC and is identified by particular

ceramic vessels and metal objects, such as weapons and jewellery. The similarities of particular

objects of material culture unearthed from a vast array of regions are treated as evidence for

interactions and migrations on a macro scale. In turn, these artefacts, as well as associated tech-

nologies and economic practices, are modelled to have spread across the steppes by waves of

migrations from the southern Urals region. Kuzmina argues these waves are linked to continen-

tal environmental changes in climate (Chapter 1) as well as the impact of the technologies

related to carts, chariots and horse tackle. These increasingly mobile societies faced rising

population pressures and required newer pastures for their stock-breeding economies.

Chapter 3 then concludes with a brief review of the archaeological evidence for the domesti-

cation of the Bactrian camel, the quintessential beast of burden associated with the Silk Route.

Chapter 4 shifts to brief descriptions of the Bronze Age archaeological cultures of

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Andronovo had also spread southward into

Kyrgyzstan and made contact with other southern Central Asian archaeological cultures. This

theme continues into Chapter 5 as the Bronze Age of northwestern Xinjiang province, China,

is examined for its connections to the Andronovo culture. In particular, the peoples of the

Tarim Basin were distinct from the Chinese populations in material culture and physical

appearance in the 2nd millennium BC. Kuzmina also draws upon the evidence from these

Xinjiang archaeological sites to find the possible ascendants to the Tocharian-speaking

peoples who appeared later within the region (1st millennium AD) and were the most eastern

branch of the Indo-European language family.

Essentially this volume follows the culture-historic approach whereby archaeological assem-

blages represent past societies or ‘cultures’. The classic definition of an ‘archaeological culture’

is that it is a collection of associated artefact types that are found repeatedly over a particular

spatial distribution and represent some sort of human grouping. In the culture-historic approach

the spread of material culture is explained through trade links, migration or invasion, and change

within a community is usually dealt with as influences coming from external sources. This

approach, however, tends to homogenize numerous societies over large regions and over long

periods of time. This is due to the emphasis upon viewing cultural change from an evolutionary

perspective relating to economic and technical developments. The material culture itself,

however, only receives tangential treatment in an attempt to portray an archaeological

culture as a unified group related to a specific ‘ethnicity’ or language, i.e. ‘Indo-European’.

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Thus, this volume predominantly focuses upon the perceived commonalities of archaeological

objects, while there is a lack of looking at their idiosyncrasies at a local level as well as the con-

sideration of the diversity from community to community within a given archaeological culture.

Furthermore, there are no discussions about the actual living persons who made these arte-

facts and how their understandings of the material world were negotiated, sustained, and

transformed by dynamic interactions with other living individuals or groups. An ‘archaeological

culture’ is not a living culture – it is the product of social constructions embedded within the

epistemologies of Western ideals. Essentially, it is the distribution of a corpus of materials

that has been turned into a human grouping, be it ‘linguistic family’ or ‘culture’. In other disci-

plines, such as anthropology and sociology, it has been acknowledged that the perceptions of

what constitutes a living ‘culture’ or ‘community’ are complex, as they are dynamic but slippery

concepts which rely heavily upon who or what is being defined.

All in all, The prehistory of the Silk Route readily presents a general overview of Kuzmina’s

research into Indo-European prehistory for an English-speaking audience. Scholars and special-

ists will find this volume a useful resource, but, regretfully, it is not suitable for casual readers

unfamiliar with the concepts and controversies behind the Indo-European grand narrative as well

as the culture-historic approach.

References

Olsen, S., et al., 2006. Horses and Humans: the evolution of human–equine relationships. BritishArchaeological Reports International Series 1560, Oxford: Archaeopress.

Zeder, M.A., et al., 2006. Documenting domestication: new genetic and archaeological paradigms.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Kenneth Lymer

Wessex Archaeology, Salisbury

Email: k.lymer@wessexarch.co.uk

# 2009, Kenneth Lymer

DOI: 10.1080/02634930903421947

Russian rule in Samarkand 1868–1910: a comparison with British India, by Alexander

Morrison, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, xxxþ364 pp.þ10 appendices, 3 maps,

7 illustrations, 10 tables, £60.00 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-19-954737-1

This is an engaging and elegantly written examination of Russian rule in Central Asia post-1865,

with particular reference to the city of Samarkand and its environs. The author has drawn exten-

sively upon sources in both Russian and English, utilizing archives in the United Kingdom,

Russia, Uzbekistan and India, and his work expands our knowledge of colonial Samarkand con-

siderably. Until now, there have been few major studies in English of this region in the same

period (apart from Mary Holdsworth’s now dated 1959 Turkestan in the nineteenth century).

However, there is still much work to be done with local sources in both Persian and Chaghatay

– particularly the latter, which remains an under-utilized source for Central Asian history. This

remains, though, an impressive debut that will be of interest to anyone working on the history of

Russian rule in Central Asia, especially from a comparative angle.

Significantly, the author couches his study in comparisons and contrasts with British rule in

India. In the introduction he provides at least half-a-dozen reasons for doing this. Firstly, he

argues, without a comparative approach it is impossible to identify those colonial traits

unique to the Russian experience in Central Asia and those common to imperial enterprises

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everywhere. Secondly, the contrasting approaches of alien minority rulers to the native majority

can be used to deduce the difference between policies promulgated by the centre and policies

initiated by the periphery. Thirdly, differences between the maritime empire of the British

and the contiguous land empire of the Russians, arising from distance and problems of transport,

are a mirage; as Morrison points out, sea-routes to India were as quick as overland routes to

Turkestan. Fourthly, the human and physical geography of Samarkand and the surrounding

Zarafshan valley bear similarities with Muslim areas of India, inter alia the North-West

Frontier, Punjab, Sindh, and Delhi. Fifthly, and this is arguably Morrison’s most salient point,

‘the weak tradition of writing about colonial empire in Central Asia’ (p. 5) requires the historian

to seek outside guidance regarding the historiography of encounters between European and

Asian peoples. For Morrison, this undoubtedly means literature relating to British India. He

cites the ‘Cambridge School’ of South Asian history, which challenges the dominant discourse

of imperial history, whereby empires are regarded as omnipotent and omniscient as an influence;

instead, historians should allow for a greater role on the part of local agents and should look for

continuity from pre-colonial times. Finally, the author points out that a comparison of Russian

Central Asia and British India is hardly new; he cites numerous examples from English and

Russian sources of the nineteenth century. Having outlined his thesis, Morrison moves onto

the heart of the study.

Chapter 1 sets the familiar scene of Russian expansion into Central Asia in the nineteenth

century. The Kazakh steppe was largely pacified, but between the Siberian and Orenburg line

of forts and the political entities of the south there were troublesome bands of nomads

causing the Russian settlers grief. The Russian military response culminated in the capture of

Tashkent in 1865. The Russian Empire was now faced with dealing with long-established

sedentary Muslim populations, challenging preconceptions about the developmental levels of

non-Russian peoples. Morrison surveys Russian encounters with the region prior to the conquest,

outlines the primary religious and ethno-linguistic characteristics of the populations, and describes

the establishment of first, military rule, and second, Russian colonial society. In Chapter 2 the

author deals with the problematic issue of Islam. It is problematic because the Russian military

commanders, in Morrison’s reasoning, held fairly derogatory views of the religion, conditioned

as they were by their bruising experiences with Imam Shamil and his predecessors in the

North Caucasus. Under General Konstantin von Kaufmann, the first governor-general of

Turkestan, a policy of ignorirovanie (‘ignoring’) was promulgated regarding Islam. That is to

say, the governorate-general of Turkestan was to be a non-confessional territory, although, as

Morrison details, Islam permeated so many of the local units of power and, of course, society

itself. Major facets of Islam covered include waqf (religious endowments), haj (pilgrimage),

education and, as a case study of local resistance, the Andijan uprising of 1898. Morrison

discerns a major division between Russian and British approaches to Islam: the former regarded

it as a wellspring of fanaticism, to be emasculated and controlled; the latter as a counterbalance

to Hinduism. One approach sought to isolate Islam, the other to engage with it.

In Chapter 3 Morrison explores Russian attempts to create a local administration. Here the

contrasts with British India are marked: whereas the British systematically sought a number of

different ways to incorporate pre-Imperial elites into the ruling structures, the Russians sought to

bypass the existing elites, notably the amlakdars (landowners or tax-farmers), khojas (religious

notables) and beks (governors). Instead, the Russians appear to have adopted a two-pronged

approach to the issue of governance. Chapter 4 explores the role of the first prong, the

Voenno-Narodnoe Upravlenie (Military-Popular Government) in Turkestan, and Chapter 5

deals with the second, the Zhivaya Stena or ‘Living Wall’ of local officials who co-operated

with the Russian regime. With a few exceptions, the Russian military administrators, especially

the lower clerks, seemed to have been unimpressive, inept, poorly motivated and ill paid. The

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contrast with the Indian Civil Service (ICS) is almost unfair for the British officials were gen-

erally better educated, better paid and more highly motivated than their Russian counterparts

(although corrupt and inept colonial officials were just as likely to crop up in India as Turkestan).

The ‘Living Wall’ of Volost Upravitels (district heads), aksakals (literally ‘white beards’) and

qazis (Islamic judges) was supposed to have borne much of the weight of Imperial rule but,

as Morrison notes, ‘corruption seems to have been absolutely endemic in the native adminis-

tration of Turkestan almost from the start’ (p. 181). However, the author argues that the failures

of native administration were common to any Empire that was stretched thinly and lacking in

colonial manpower.

These problems of administration manifested themselves in the management of irrigation,

which is the focus of Chapter 6. Tsarist officials did little to expand the irrigation network

and indeed seemed to have had a poor grasp of the whole issue in general. Local disputes

over water distribution frequently arose and Russian attempts to challenge the status quo

failed. Although the British were faced with similar problems to their Russian counterparts,

they were far more effective at extracting taxation from water management. Chapter 7 explores

the final facet of Morrison’s study, the qazis and the judiciary. Both Russian and British

administrators were faced with the primary challenge of law in Muslim societies, namely that

sharia is not a fixed code, but a combination of the Koran, sunna (traditions), ijma (consensus),

and qiyas (analogy). Moreover, in Turkestan the Russians greatly over-estimated the importance

of the qazis, transforming them from specialist interpreters of sharia law into paid servants of the

Tsar, thus expanding their powers.

The author concludes that by comparison with British-ruled India, ‘to the historian looking

back over fifty years of Russian rule in Turkestan, the administration appears a complete sham-

bles’ (p. 287). He believes, however, that there was a signal difference in colonial attitudes: the

British viewed India and Indians purely as subjects of rule, while many Russians wanted to inte-

grate Turkestan completely into Russia – in other words, to pursue a policy of integration and

Russification. This may prove controversial to those who view empires everywhere as purely

exploitative ventures, yet not all empires are the same; what distinguishes British experiences

in India from those of the Tsarist colonialists in Central Asia is the issue of time. The

Russian conquest of Central Asia occurred later than the British conquest of India, and

Tsarist rule ended some thirty years before the Raj. The author brushes lightly over this; a

more effective comparison would have made more of this contrast. The simple fact remains

that the Tsarist system had less time to become as deeply rooted in Central Asian life than its

British counterpart. Minor quibbles aside, this nonetheless remains an impressive study.

Nick Walmsley

Indiana University

Email: nwalmsle@indiana.edu

# 2009, Nick Walmsley

DOI: 10.1080/02634930903421970

Eurasia’s new frontiers: young states, old societies, open futures, by Thomas W. Simons Jr.,

Ithaca, NY, and London, Cornell University Press, 2008, 200 pp.þ2 maps, US$25.00 (hard-

cover), ISBN 978-0-8014-4743-3

With this pithy work, experienced American diplomat Thomas W. Simons Jr. makes a nuanced

and provocative contribution to the growing literature analysing American efforts at promoting

democracy. Simons’s core argument is that in the post-Soviet sphere, long-term US interests in

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democratization will be best served through a more consistently state-centric (as opposed to

society-centric) foreign policy approach to the region. The author contends that despite all of

their faults, the states in the region must be dealt with ‘“as if” they were responsible and

capable participants in an international society with twenty-first century standards’ (p. 142).

Given the underdevelopment of civil society across the region and the ubiquitous insecurity

of most of the state-affiliated elites, Simons posits that efforts to promote change from the

bottom up may have deleterious consequences on both the development of democracy and on

the growth of benign, civic forms of nationalism. For these reasons, the US (and by extension,

other Western countries) would be well served not to treat the Eurasian states or the elites that

occupy the state structures ‘“as if” they were mere shells of or enemies of tomorrow’s possibly

more attractive civil societies’ (p. 143).

In assessing the US foreign policy approach to Eurasia since independence, Simons is careful

to emphasize that although it has been unfocused and largely reactive, it has fostered some crea-

tive solutions to problems. He points most notably to the 2007 resolution for the US to utilize

existing Russian radar installations in Azerbaijan instead of installing new equipment in

eastern Europe. However, the author maintains that the current approach is not an efficacious

use of the United States’ limited influence to shape the Eurasian states in a direction consistent

with its declared values. Where US policy has erred it has overwhelmingly been in the failure to

recognize that, unlike other parts of the world where transnational forces have seemingly

usurped legitimacy from the nation-state, ‘[i]n the post-Soviet space the nation-state is not a

relic of the past but the wave of the future . . . in Eurasia the nation-state is and will remain

for many years to come the most plausible and effective vehicle for ensuring identity,

welfare, and even prosperity through effective governance’ (p. 141).

Immediately following the Soviet collapse, most US aid (and Western aid in general) was

directed to the newly independent states themselves, not to their societies; however as

Simons notes, this aid was intended to help these new states ‘shrink themselves’ by disentangling

the linkages between state institutions and national economies (p. 25). In the mid-1990s, the

notion that Western aid could promote strong civil societies autonomous from their states

began to take hold of the imagination of the majority of Western donors. In the strongest analyti-

cal section of the book, Simons explores the difficulty in transporting the concept of civil society

from the West, where it is often over-idealized anyway, to the post-Soviet sphere, where civil

society is ‘anemic’ and all too often fused with the state (p. 4). To illustrate the feebleness of

civil society in the post-Soviet context, the author notes the incredibly low rates of participation

in organizations, the subsequent rent seeking and donor dependence of many local nongovern-

mental organizations, and the emergence of incumbent elite-sponsored organizations such as

Nashi in Russia.

These conditions lead Simons to observe that in Eurasia, civil society exists only when state

elites ‘call it into being as they fight each other to keep or gain power’ (p. 37). Because the state

remains so crucial to its future development, the author argues that civil society promotion at the

expense of the state is not only ineffective, it is also potentially counterproductive. According to

Simons, the relatively insecure elites of the post-Soviet realm, concerned as they are with con-

solidating their own power, may interpret the promotion of civil society as an effort by the West

to undermine their sovereignty claims. He is concerned that this interpretation may persuade

some state elites, with the notable exception of Russian elites, to legitimate themselves

through sponsoring ethno-cultural nationalism.

With such a short book, it is almost inevitable that there will be points that would benefit

from further elaboration. In particular, it seems that Simons’s argument would have been

strengthened with a more thorough presentation of US efforts to export democratic revolutions

earlier this decade. For example, in 2004 President Bush first signed the Belarus Democracy

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Act into law, authorizing funds to be used to promote democratic activism in that country. This

type of explicit action to promote democratic movements and the state crackdowns they

inspired, perhaps most notably the Andijan events of 2005, could have been forcefully used

to justify Simons’s advocacy for a state-centric US foreign policy, yet the references to

them are unfortunately brief and inexplicit. Furthermore, it remains an open question of

how beneficial a state-centric policy can be between the US and states with chronically

underdeveloped institutions such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The obvious fear is that US

efforts to nurture state institutions in locations where they remain unable to stand on their

own will result in dependence and rentier behaviour, developments which would run contrary

to long-term US interests.

Students of Central Asia may be slightly disappointed by Simons’s Russo-centric analysis of

the post-Soviet sphere; nearly an entire chapter (Chapter 3) is devoted to analysing the Russian

state’s use of economic levers to dictate the politics of the ‘near abroad’, yet China’s growing

influence in the region is hardly mentioned. While it is foolish to ignore the impact of Russia

on the other Soviet successor states, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s refusal to force-

fully support the Russian position in the conflict with Georgia during its 2008 summit suggests

that the Central Asian states have a fair amount of foreign policy autonomy. Also problematic for

those concerned with Central Asia is Simons’s expansive definition of ‘clan’. Claiming that

clans dominate Central Asian politics, he argues that they often extend beyond kinship to

‘accrete members based on regional origins or common schooling or simply personal

loyalty.’ (p. 56) Simons admits that by his definition, ‘the security types whom Putin has

made great in Russian governance are a “clan” too.’ (p. 56) Although Simons’s definition of

‘clan’ reflects how the term is often used by residents of Central Asia, for academic purposes

it represents a lamentable case of conceptual stretching and ignores much of the contemporary

debate surrounding the concept.

This neglect of the recent debate on clan politics is the exception, not the rule, however; the

project was borne out of a position that Simons held at the Davis Center at Harvard University

following his retirement from public service. At the Davis Center, he was responsible for

directing a multi-year workshop of academic and governmental specialists on the Soviet and

post-Soviet space formed to study and track developments in the region. The end product

reflects the workshop’s attention to recent scholarship on the political institutions of the

former Soviet states; by bringing together key concepts and findings from recent scholarship

and using them to advance his argument for a more coherent and sober US approach to the

region, Simons makes an important contribution to discussions of US foreign policy. That

this contribution is made in a book written in a very approachable style should guarantee its

appeal to a wide potential audience ranging from undergraduates to policy makers to the

interested public.

Brent Hierman

Indiana University

Email: bhierman@indiana.edu

# 2009, Brent Hierman

DOI: 10.1080/02634930903422044

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