Beyond The Pass

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.

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.

Chronicles the wars of the 19th century in India and Afghanistan resulting in the siege of Kabul and the deaths of 16,000 British soldiers and their families.

Lowell Thomas was already known for his run of good luck. Back in 1916 the brash American reporter had been the first journalist to venture into the desolation of the Arabian deserts in search of the legendary Lawrence of Arabia. But now, with that story and the First World War behind him, Thomas was hungry again. He was looking for new adventures, new heroes and, most of all, new geographical challenges. He found them all in one country: Afghanistan! The Forbidden Kingdom, as it was popularly known in the 1920s, had turned her back on Europe and the West for several decades. Not to be put off, Thomas applied for a tourist visa, planning on writing a few articles about the colorful Pathan tribesmen who inhabited the desolate deserts of the south, and the secretive non-Muslim inhabitants of the mountainous north of Afghanistan. In fact, Thomas saw neither. The Afghans were suspicious of strangers, especially an American journalist. They promptly denied him his request for access to the fortified mountain kingdom. What followed was a two-year cat-and-mouse game between the determined American and the reclusive Afghans. Eventually, in 1927, the government in Kabul did agree to let Thomas enter their country, but only, Thomas learned later, after Amir Amalluah Khan, the king of Afghanistan, had personally intervened on his behalf. This is Lowell s story of how he slipped past the infamous Khyber Pass, that door of stone which had refused to open for two years, and made his way into a kingdom which had remained unchanged for more than a thousand years. It is a bold story, filled with the people of remote Central Asia, and depicts this important cultural crossroads before it was forever changed by the wars of the late twentieth century.

Webb, a young street musician, faces grizzly bears and a madman on the Canol Trail when he tries to fulfill a request in his late grandfather's will.