Hungry Steppe

Sarah Cameron is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland.

The Hungry Steppe offers a valuable contribution to the historical record by providing the first painstaking, English-language examination of the Kazakh famine.(Eurasianet) A valuable addition.... An important first step in ensuring a proper, nuanced account of this neglected event in Soviet and Central Asian history.(Asian Review of Books) A good work of scholarship can accomplish several things: inform, expand the boundaries of what we know on a subject, make us wiser, and sometimes even move us. Sarah Cameron's excellent book on the Kazakhstan famine of 1930–33 does all these things and more.(The Russian Review) Cameron is articulate and eloquent, and this is an excellent, lucidly written book.(Choice) In The Hungry Steppe, Sarah Cameron presents a well-researched and well-written history of the famines and other traumatic experiences that Kazakh pastoralists endured during the first two decades of Soviet rule.- Mark B. Tauger, West Virginia University (SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW) Sarah Cameron's book is a significant and timely contribution to the historiography of Soviet Central Asia and the debates about the nature of Soviet modernization and nation-building in the national peripheries. Clearly structured and written in a highly accessible style, the book follows the unfolding of one of the worst famines in human history.(Ab Imperio) Cameron sees the wider significance of her research for the field of Soviet history. Cameron's excellent book will be of interest to the general public as well as specialists in Stalinist economic transformations, state violence, and genocide.(Journal of Modern History)

• Explanatory NoteList of MapsIntroduction1. The Steppe and the Sown: Peasants, Nomads, and the Transformation of the Kazakh Steppe, 1896–19212. Can You Get to Socialism by Camel? The Fate of Pastoral Nomadism in Soviet Kazakhstan, 1921–283. Kazakhstan's "Little October": The Campaign against Kazakh Elites, 19284. Nomads under Siege: Kazakhstan and the Launch of Forced Collectivization5. Violence, Flight, and Hunger: The Sino-Kazakh Border and the Kazakh Famine6. Kazakhstan and the Politics of Hunger, 1931–34ConclusionEpilogueGlossaryAcknowledgmentsAppendix: Precipitation Levels for the Kazakh Steppe, 1921–33List of Abbreviations Used in the NotesNotesBibliographyIndex