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Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History. By MICHAEL R. DROMPP. Leiden: Brill, 2005. 370 pp. $156.00 (cloth).
The Uighurs, victors in the scramble for power that followed the collapse of the second Eastern Türk Qaghanate in 742 CE, formed a powerful steppe empire in 744. They were one of the leading tribal groupings of the Toquz Oghuz confederation (Chin. Jiu Xing) with roots that went back to the Gaoche and Tiele tribal unions. Drompp (p. 23) argues that the Uighurs did not consider their state a Third Turk Qaghante, but rather "a new phase within the established Turk tradition." This is certainly correct, but it was also yet another variant in the Steppe Imperial Tradition that dated back to the Xiongnu. Moreover, the Uighurs, as implied in some of their mid-eighth-century runic inscriptions (Tes, Terkhin), viewed their royal history as antedating that of the Turks and saw their period of hegemony in the so-called holy precincts of the Orkhon-Selenge zone in Mongolia as a restoration to their proper place (see the work of S. G. Klyashtornyi, most recently summarized in S. G. Klyashtornyi and D. G. Savinov, 2005, Stepnye imperil drevnei Ewazii, Saint Petersburg, Russia: Saint Petersburg State University, Faculty of Philology, pp. 66-67).
In 755, they helped the Tang to suppress the An Lushan revolt and ensuing internal disorders in China. On this basis they were able to extract large amounts of silk and three royal brides from the Tang. Their political, commercial, and cultural symbiosis with the Soghdian trading diaspora that extended across the Silk Road made them major players in Eurasian affairs. Thus, their sudden collapse in 840, amid a swirl of internal bickering, bad weather...