Originally announced as Volume I of The Cambridge History of Central Asia, this book will now be published as a one volume history. (Volumes 2 and 3, previously announced, will not now be published.) This book introduces the geographical setting of Inner Asia and follows its history from the paleolithic era to the rise of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century. From earliest times Inner Asia has linked and separated the great sedentary civilizations of Europe and Asia. In the pre-modern period it was definable more as a cultural than a geographical entity, its frontiers shifting accORD international scholars who have pioneered the exploration of Inner Asia's poorly documented past, this book chronologically traces the varying historical achievements of the disparate population groups in the region. These include the Scythians and Sarmatians, the Hsiung-nu, the Huns and Avars, the people of the Russian steppes, the Turk empire, the Uighurs and the Tibetan empire. It is the editor's hope that this book will bring Inner Asia more closely into the fabric of world history. "The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia is the single best introduction in any language to the political history of the inhabitants of Inner Asia up to Mongol times. No other collective volume approaches the comprehensiveness of its scope; nor can any single-author history claim mastery of the many fields exhibited by its collective authorship. It concentrates on the most important strand in the history of this vast and storied region, home to nomadic herdsmen, forest hunters and sedentary oasis-dwellers alike." Journal of Asian History "...was much needed and waited for...we should be grateful to its editor and the authors." Journal of Asian and African Studies "The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia is now the single most important work in any Western language surveying the Turkic and non-Turkic peoples and states of early Inner Asia." Turkish Studies Association Bulletin "This volume is a splendid synthesis of narrative and analytical history, and a definitive work of reference." Choice This volume introduces the geographical setting of Central Asia and follows its history from the palaeolithic era to the rise of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century.