The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age

Description

This volume centres on the history and legacy of the Mongol World Empire founded by Chinggis Khan and his sons, including its impact upon the modern world. An international team of scholars examines the political and cultural history of the Mongol empire, its Chinggisid successor states, and the non-Chinggisid dynasties that came to dominate Inner Asia in its wake. Geographically, it focuses on the continental region from East Asia to Eastern Europe. Beginning in the twelfth century, the volume moves through to the establishment of Chinese and Russian political hegemony in Inner Asia from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Contributors use recent research and new approaches that have revitalized Inner Asian studies to highlight the world-historical importance of the regimes and states formed during and after the Mongol conquest. Their conclusions testify to the importance of a region whose modern fate has been overshadowed by Russia and China.

Nicola Di Cosmo is Professor of East Asian Studies in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. His recent publications include Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Powers in East Asian History (2002), Manchu-Mongol Relations on the Eve of the Qing Conquest (2003), and The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China (2006). Allen J. Frank is an independent scholar. He has published widely on the history of Islam in Imperial Russia and in the Central Asian Soviet successor states. His previous publications include Islamic Historiography and 'Bulghar' Identity among the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia (1998), Muslim Religious Institutions in Imperial Russia (2001), and An Islamic Biographical Dictionary of the Eastern Kazakh Steppe, 1770-1912 (as co-editor, 2005). Peter B. Golden is Professor of History and Academic Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. Among his publications are An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992; Turkish editions 2002, 2006), Nomads and their Neighbours in the Russian Steppe (2003) and The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives (as co-editor, 2007).

'... this should be regarded as an example of the genus 'Cambridge History' at its impressive best.' Professor David Morgan, University of Wisconsin-Madison 'This is the first significant history of mediaeval Inner Asia since the work by Vasilii Bartol'd. The second volume of The Cambridge History of Inner Asia presents twenty contributions written by well-established scholars and develops two historiographical theses: the Mongol creation of mediaeval Central Asia; a longer periodisation of the Middle Age.' Central Eurasian Reader '... an example of the genus 'Cambridge History' at its impressive best.' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies