Explore the rich tapestry of Central Asia with this comprehensive guide by renowned political writer and historian Dilip Hiro. A Financial Times Book of the Year. The former Soviet republics of Central Asia comprise a sprawling, politically pivotal, and richly cultured area of the world. In this comprehensive survey, Dilip Hiro offers a lucid analysis that places the modern politics, economics, and peoples of Central Asia and neighboring Turkey and Iran into an international context. Given the strategic location of this region and its extensive hydrocarbon and other natural resources, this vast expanse of Eurasia is emerging as one of the most potentially influential—and coveted—areas of the globe. Inside Central Asia provides what Karin Esposito of Foreign Policy called "an all-encompassing history of practically everything the average reader of history might want to know about the region." "Few people know Central Asia the way Dilip Hiron does," commented Luca Anceschi of the Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs . " Inside Central Asia is a major contribution to the study of post-Soviet Central Asia, interesting for both specialized and non-specialized readers for its solid analytical framework, the author's engaging style, and the remarkable amount of information provided." "For those who still get their "-stans" mixed up, Hiro's book provides a detailed and nuanced overview of the region of central Asia. He explains the ethnic tensions, religious intolerance and struggle for political identity in the lands caught between two behemoths the splintered Soviet empire and the rising Chinese one." - Financial Times , Best Books of 2009 "Readers acquainted with Mr.Hiro's prolific writing about Asia and the Islamic world will be unsurprised to learn that Inside Central Asia is a conscientious guide to the region, full of dependable history-telling and analysis." - The Economist "Hiro's account provides a fast-moving and well-sourced genealogy of the Central Asian republics' political and economic trajectories, focusing on the post-Stalinist period up to the present day. It is unlikely that more comprehensive analysis of this period in Central Asia has been written, and it serves as a valuable update to Hiro¦s earlier Between Marx and Muhammad: the Changing Face of Central Asia ." -Issac Scarborough, n+1 Dilip Hiro is the author of more than thirty books, including Blood of the Earth, War Without End , and Between Marx and Mohammad . He contributes regularly to The New York Times, The Guardian , and The Washington Post , andis a commentator for CNN and the BBC. Great product!