Content area
Full text
RR 2013/125 The Routledge Atlas of Central Eurasian Affairs Stanley D. Brunn, Stanley W. Toops and Richard Gilbreath Routledge London 2012 x + 173 pp. ISBN 978 0 415 49750 3 (hbck); ISBN 978 0 415 49752 7 (pbck); ISBN 978 0 203 11856 6 (e-book) £85, $145 (hbck); £24.99, $42.95 (pbck)
Keywords Central Asia, Maps
Review DOI 10.1108/09504121311308921
When I reviewed the Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia (Abazov, 2008) (RR 2009/150) I recommended it as an unrivalled "cheap, up-to-date, nearly pocket-sized guide to a little-known area of enormous geopolitical importance". It might now be said that it has finally been rivalled, by the Routledge Atlas of Central Eurasian Affairs, but in some respects the two are complementary: the Palgrave adas is better for the historical context and the Routledge better for current geopolitical and economic information. Any library catering for readers interested in geography, history, political economy or international relations can be strongly recommended to buy both.
I am slightly surprised that this new atlas does not cite Mackinder's (1904) key essay on what he termed "the heartland". This is generally said to be the founding study for geopolitics as a discipline, and brought out the crucial historical importance of the area. As I pointed out when reviewing the Historical Dictionary of Kazakhstan (Kassymova et al., 2012) (RR 2013/039), "[f]rom very early in the prehistoric human record the Central Asian steppes have been the home of nomadic tribes. Periodic overpopulation led to waves of marauders pouring out into the surrounding territories. Much of the history of China, of Persia, of the Roman Empire and of Hindu India consists of accounts of them coping with these invaders". Gibbon knew very little about the area, for example, but a large proportion of the Decline & Fall is devoted to the effects of peoples originating from it.
The area under discussion can be broadly summarised as the '"stans" - the former...