Central Asia

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsWinner of Arthur Ross Book Award 2014 and Asia Society's Bernard Schwartz Book Award 2014 and Cundill Prize in Historical Literature 2014 and Lionel Gelber Prize 2014 and...

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...

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...

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...

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...

While the early history of the steppe nomads is shrouded in obscurity, this obscurity lifts somewhat after their contact with cultures possessing written histories. But even when information about them becomes relatively more plentiful, linguistic...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The Afghan crisis has grabbed the attention of the entire world, and underlined the desperate need in the West for a better understanding of the region and its challenges in the face of increasingly militant interpretations of Islam. Carved up and...

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 timely and illuminating history of Tibet, from the seventh century to what it means to be Tibetan today Situated north of the Himalayas, Tibet is famous for its unique culture and its controversial assimilation into modern China. Yet Tibet in the...

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...

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...

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

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...

'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...

A penetrating look into the unrecognized and unregulated links between autocratic regimes in Central Asia and centers of power and wealth throughout the West Weak, corrupt, and politically unstable, the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

This great Central Asian epic, passed down through generations and now brought to life in a new translation, carries the reader into a world of nomads, warriors and horselords'I am a steel-fanged lion, a dragon ready to pounce, a mighty poplar with...

In the first few years after the Russian Revolution, an ideological project coalesced to link the development of what Stalin demarcated as the internal "East"--primarily Central Asia and the Caucasus--with nation-building, the overthrow of colonialism,...

The Mongols carved out the largest land-based empire in world history, stretching from Korea to Russia in the north and from China to Syria in the south in the thirteenth century. Along with their leader Chinggis Khan they conjure up images of plunder...

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...

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...

"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...

'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...

This compete history of one of the largest non-Slavic ethnic groups charts it from its emergence in the mid-fifteenth century to the present. Olcott details the major events that have shaped the character of the Islamic nation of Kazakhstan, discussing...

'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 9780593242797Author Robert D. KaplanFormat HardbackPage Count 400Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA Inc

Afghanistan in the summer of 2006. In blazing heat in remote outposts the 3 Para battlegroup is pitted against a stubborn enemy who keep on coming. Until now, the full story of what happened there has not been told. This is it. In April 2006,...

On 27 July 1880 the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment fought a terrible battle on the dusty plains of Afghanistan. The battle went down in history as a massacre which effectively wiped out the regiment. They lost 10 officers and 276 men. Nonetheless, their...