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Golden already has one Variorum volume to his credit (Nomads and Their Neighbours in the Russian Steppe: Turks, Khazars and Qipchaqs, 2003), and this fresh collection of eleven articles, first published between 2000 and 2007, will be warmly welcomed by scholars concerned with the pastoralist peoples of the Eurasian steppe and their interaction at so many different levels with the sedentary world. The first six articles relate to Turkic matters more generally; the last five focus on the Khazars. "The Türks: origins and expansion" (I), of which a shorter version appeared in Turkish in 2006, provides a panoramic view of the formation of Turkish peoples since the emergence of the Türk empire in sixth-century Central Asia, with a strong accent on the grafting-on of new, non-Turkish, ethnic elements and on cultural influences from outside the steppe. One such influence is the subject of "A QaraÄay Nart tale of lupine origins: an echo of the Asina tradition?" (II), where Golden traces the vicissitudes of the ethnogonic myth associated with the ruling clan of the Türks, the Ashina, a myth (like the name Ashina itself) ultimately of Iranian provenance. "The Türk imperial tradition in the pre-Chinggisid era" (III) explores the traditions of governance that the Türks took over from earlier steppe confederacies like the Xiongnu and the Rouran and transmitted to the Mongols.
There follows a group of articles on the interaction between nomadic Turkish peoples and their...