History Of Central Asia The 4 Volume Set

This set includes all four volumes of the critically acclaimed History of Central Asia series. The epic plains and arid deserts of Central Asia have witnessed some of the greatest migrations, as well as many of the most transformative developments, in the history of civilization. Christoph Baumer's ambitious four-volume treatment of the region charts the 3000-year drama of Scythians and Sarmatians; Soviets and transcontinental Silk Roads; trade routes and the transmission of ideas across the steppes; and the breathless and brutal conquests of Alexander the Great and Chinghiz Khan. Masterfully interweaving the stories of individuals and peoples, the author's engaging prose is richly augmented throughout by colour photographs taken on his own travels. This set includes The Age of the Steppe Warriors (Volume 1), The Age of the Silk Roads (Volume 2), The Age of Islam and the Mongols (Volume 3) and The Age of Decline and Revival (Volume 4)

This set includes all four volumes of the critically acclaimed History of Central Asia series. The epic plains and arid deserts of Central Asia have witnessed some of the greatest migrations, as well as many of the most transformative developments, in the history of civilization. Christoph Baumer's ambitious four-volume treatment of the region charts the 3000-year drama of Scythians and Sarmatians; Soviets and transcontinental Silk Roads; trade routes and the transmission of ideas across the steppes; and the breathless and brutal conquests of Alexander the Great and Chinghiz Khan. Masterfully interweaving the stories of individuals and peoples, the author's engaging prose is richly augmented throughout by colour photographs taken on his own travels. This set includes The Age of the Steppe Warriors (Volume 1), The Age of the Silk Roads (Volume 2), The Age of Islam and the Mongols (Volume 3) and The Age of Decline and Revival (Volume 4)

The period treated in this volume is highlighted by the slow retreat of nomadism and the progressive increase of sedentary polities owing to a fundamental change in military technology: Furthermore, this period certainly saw a growing contrast in the pace of economic and cultural progress between Central Asia and Europe. The internal growth of the European economies and the influx of silver from the New World gave Atlantic Europe an increasingly important position in world trade and caused a major shift in inland Asian trade. Thus, 1850 marks the end of the total sway of pre-modern culture as the extension of colonial dominance was accompanied by the influx of modern ideas.

For more than a hundred years, Central Asia was the heartland of the mightiest military power on the planet. But after the fragmentation of the all-conquering Mongol polity, the region began a steep decline which rendered this former domain of horse lords peripheral to world affairs. The process of deterioration reached its nadir in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the former territories and sweeping steppes of the great khans were overrun by Tsarist Russia. In the concluding volume of his acclaimed Central Asia quartet, Christoph Baumer shows how China in the east, and Russia in the northwest, succeeded in throwing off the Mongol yoke to become the masters of their own previous rulers. He suggests that, as traditional transcontinental trade routes declined in importance, it was the `Great Game' - or cold war between Imperial Russia and Great Britain - which finally brought Central Asia back into play as a region of strategic importance. This epic history concludes with an assessment of the transition to modern independence of the Central Asian states and their struggle to contain radical Islamism.

This major six-volume project, co-published with Macmillan, covers the historical experience of the peoples and societies of the Caribbean region from the earliest times to the present day. The sixth volume brings this series to an end as it takes in the whole of the modern period from colonial conquest and domination to decolonization; the Cold War from start to finish; the disintegration of the Soviet Union; and the renewed instability in certain areas. Not only did the colonial regimes lay a new patina over the region, but nationalism remoulded all old identities into a series of new ones. That process of the twentieth century was perhaps the most transformative of all after the colonial subjugation of the nineteenth. While it has been the basis of remarkable stability in vast stretches of the region, it has been a fertile source of tension and even wars in other parts. The impact and the results of such changes have been astonishingly variable despite the proximity of these states to each other and their being subject to, or driven, by virtually the same compulsions.