Slavery and Empire in Central Asia

Jeff Eden is a Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Cornell University. He is the author of The Life of Muhammad Sharif (2015) and co-editor of Beyond Modernism: Rethinking Islam in Russia, Central Asia and Western China (19th-20th Centuries) (2016).

'Eden provides readers with a fascinating study of the slave trade in Central Asia, challenging the view that imperial Russia brought that pre-Islamic tradition to an end … Readers will be especially interested in the material drawn from such rare sources as transcripts of interviews with former slaves compiled by Russian border officials, legal documents, and eyewitness travel reports. One such source is the firsthand account of the Iranian Mīrzā Maḥmūd Taqī Āshtiyānī, who spent ten years as a slave among Turkmen tribes. This account provides a rare treat for readers - a slave's own perspective. The book ends by describing a little-known slave rebellion in Central Asia in 1873 that nicely underscores Eden's arguments about local slave agency … This book fills a large gap in the history of Central Asia and global slavery. Highly Recommended.' Choice

• Introduction; 1. The setting: Russia, Iran, and the slaves of the Khanates; 2. Beyond the bazaars: geographies of the slave trade in Central Asia; 3. From despair to liberation: Mῑrzā Maḥmūd Taqῑ Āshtiyānῑ's ten years of slavery; 4. The slaves' world: jobs, roles and families; 5. From slaves to serfs: manumission along the Kazakh frontier; 6. The Khan as Russian agent: native informants and abolition; 7. The conquest of Khiva and the myth of Russian abolitionism in Central Asia.