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RR 2000/212 The Handbook of Central Asia: A Comprehensive Survey of the Republics Giampaolo R. Capisani I.B. Tauris London 2000 xxi + 264 pp. ISBN I 86064 429 5 L45.00
Keyword Asia
Jerked into premature independence by the rapid disintegration of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the last decade, the five Central Asian republics - Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan - inherited similar political and social problems which, to a certain extent, mirrored those of the indigenous peoples of Africa whose natural territories were indiscriminately carved up by the European powers in the nineteenth century. Never having enjoyed a real autonomy, they were the visible relics of Stalin-imposed political entities pre-eminently designed to prevent them uniting into a pan-Islamic movement which would threaten the regional hegemony and stability of the Communist regime in Moscow. Not that...