Central Asia

'Filled with insights, the very latest research and plenty of surprises: a superlative catalogue of one the most ambitious and spectacular exhibitions ever staged at the British Museum.' - Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the...

Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, told by a former British Ambassador Twenty-five years ago, when the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan after a gruelling nine-year occupation, they left a legacy obscured by distortion and distrust. Fuelled by Cold War...

2021 Cundill History Prize FinalistA Financial Times Best Book of the YearA Spectator Best Book of the YearA Five Books Best Book of the Year"Outstanding, original, and revolutionary. Favereau subjects the Mongols to a much-needed re-evaluation, showing...

For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth, Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia, fought a secret war in the lonely passes and deserts of Central Asia. Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it 'The Great Game', a phrase...

We in the west share a common narrative of world history. But our story largely omits a whole civilization whose citizens shared an entirely different narrative for a thousand years. In Destiny Disrupted , Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world...

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...

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the forces of resistance were disparate and divided mujahideen groups, as interested in fighting each other and competing for Western arms as opposing the Russians. The exception was Ahmed Shah Massoud, the...

Archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist, author, poet, photographer, mountaineer and nation builder, Gertrude Bell was born in 1868 into a world of privilege and plenty, but she turned her back on all that for her passion for the Arab peoples, becoming the...

A powerful account of the life of Tamerlane the Great (1336-1405), the last master nomadic power, one of history's most extreme tyrants, and the subject of Marlowe's famous play. Marozzi travelled in the footsteps of the great Mogul Emperor of Samarkland...

Roman Ungern von Sternberg was a Baltic aristocrat, a violent, headstrong youth posted to the wilds of Siberia and Mongolia before the First World War. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Baron - now in command of a lethally effective rabble of...

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable...

A major history of Central Asia and how it has been shaped by modern world eventsCentral Asia is often seen as a remote and inaccessible land on the peripheries of modern history. Encompassing Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,...

Waziristan is a remote district of Pakistan populated by fiercely independent tribes who owe allegiance to no one and unite only to repel invaders or wage jihad. Its mountainous landscape is a natural fortress - sanctuary to the Taliban, probable refuge...

The first account of the new Taliban-showing who they are, what they want, and how they differ from their predecessors A Newsweek Staffers' Favorite Book of 2023 Since the fall of Kabul in 2021, the Taliban have effective control of Afghanistan-a...

No other land has captured man's imagination quite like Tibet. Hidden away behind the highest mountains on earth, and ruled over by a mysterious God-king, it was for centuries a land forbidden to all outsiders. In this remarkable and ultimately tragic...

The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas. Its oasis towns blossomed into thriving centres of...

Afghanistan, 2008. After their eighteen-month epic tour of Helmand Province, the troops of 3 Para are back. This time, the weight of experience weighs heavily on their shoulders. In April 2006 the elite 3 Para Battle Group was despatched to...

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the forces of resistance were disparate and divided mujahideen groups, as interested in fighting each other and competing for Western arms as opposing the Russians. The exception was Ahmed Shah Massoud, the...

Colin Thurbon's beautiful prose unfolds along the Silk Road, unearthing a richly layered past on his most ambitious journey. On buses, donkey carts, trains, jeeps and camels, Colin Thubron traces the drifts of the first great trade route out of the heart...

A rich, discovery-filled history that tells how a forgotten empire transformed the ancient worldIn the late 8th and early 7th centuries BCE, Scythian warriors conquered and unified most of the vast Eurasian continent, creating an innovative empire that...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781578637928Author David ShiFormat PaperbackPage Count 272Imprint Red Wheel/WeiserPublisher Red Wheel/Weiser

Under the banner of a Holy War, masterminded in Berlin and unleashed from Constantinople, the Germans and the Turks set out in 1914 to foment violent revolutionary uprisings against the British in India and the Russians in Central Asia. It was a new and...

The relationship between America and Pakistan is based on mutual incomprehension and always has been. Pakistan,to American eyes,has gone from being a quirky irrelevance, to a stabilizing friend, to an essential military ally, to a seedbed of terror...

First revealed by a Tibetan monk in the 14th century, Bardo Thodol ("Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State") - known more commonly as The Tibetan Book of the Dead - describes the experience of human consciousness in the bardo, the...

The Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was...

'Let us turn our faces towards Asia', exhorted Lenin when the long-awaited revolution in Europe failed to materialize. 'The East will help us conquer the West.' Peter Hopkirk's book tells for the first time the story of the Bolshevik attempt to set the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780593242810Author Robert D. KaplanFormat PaperbackPage Count 400Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA Inc

A vibrant portrait of an age when Arabic enlightenment anticipated and inspired the European Renaissance, illuminated by its guiding figures and rivals, Ibn Sina and Biruni. In The Genius of their Age, S. Frederick Starr follows up his acclaimed Lost...

How the collapse of empires helps explain the efforts of China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey to challenge the international order Eurasia's major powers-China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey-increasingly intervene across their borders while seeking to pull their...

'John Keay is the master storyteller and historian. This grand narrative of Himalaya is as epic as the mountains and peoples he describes' Dan Snow 'Adds the human element to the hard rock. And what a rich vein it is' Michael Palin History has not...

Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901) was a leading figure in the cultural revolution that transformed Japan from an isolated feudal nation into a full-fledged player in the modern world. He translated a wide range of Western works and adapted them to Japanese...

The first English-language book to examine the crucial part air power played in the Soviet-Afghan War. The Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan was fought as much in the air as on the ground. From the high-level bombing raids that blasted rebel-held...

Gritty, but witty, description of life and death on the front line in Afghanistan, by the bestselling author of BULLET MAGNET.Now Zad, Afghanistan: a small unit of British soldiers are beseiged on a hilltop, surrounded by Taliban. There is no way out...

A journey along the greatest land route on earth, from the master of travel writing Colin Thubron On buses, donkey carts, trains, jeeps and camels, Colin Thubron traces the drifts of the first great trade route out of the heart of China into the...

In this monumental, authoritative new history of Afghanistan, Jonathan L. Lee places the current conflict in its historical context and challenges many of the West's preconceived ideas about the country. Lee chronicles the region's monarchic rules and...

This book is for all those who love Kim, that masterpiece of Indian life in which Kipling immortalized the Great Game. Fascinated since childhood by this strange tale of an orphan boy's recruitment into the Indian secret service, Peter Hopkirk here...

"Beautifully researched and deeply moving, [this book] brought me to tears more than once" -- John Simpson, The Guardian "First-class...exhaustively researched and sensitively written" -- The Times The extraordinary true story of the Afghans who...

An exciting and richly detailed new history of the Silk Road that tells how it became more important as a route for diplomacy than for tradeThe King's Road offers a new interpretation of the history of the Silk Road, emphasizing its importance as a...

'To read this book is to understand Afghanistan as it exists today. This haunting memoir traces the unimaginable odyssey of one family whose world has collapsed . . . Poetic, powerful, and unforgettable.' - Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780553386165Author Rusty BradleyFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Div of Random House, IncPublisher Random House USA...