Edmund Herzig - Böcker

Tajikistan is one of the lesser-known and least-researched former Soviet Central Asian republics. The birth of the new state in 1991 was followed closely by a civil war which killed more than 50,000 people and displaced many tens of thousands more. While a peace agreement was signed in 1997, significant political violence continued until 2001 and intermittent outbreaks still occur today. Many claim it remains a very weak state and perhaps in danger of state failure or a return to civil war. However, the revival of Tajikistan should not simply be seen in terms of its post-conflict stabilization. Since its creation as a republic of the Soviet Union in 1920s, Tajikistan has been transformed from being a shell for socialist engineering to become a national society under a modern state. Despite a multitude of economic, social and political shocks, the Republic of Tajikistan endures.This book places the transformation of Tajikistan in its Soviet and Post-Soviet historical settings and local and global contexts. It explores the sources of a state with Soviet roots but which has been radically transformed by independence and its exposure to global politics and economics. The authors address the sources of statehood in history, Islam and secularism, gender relations, the economy, international politics and security affairs.This book is a new edition of a special issue of Central Asian Survey, ‘Tajikistan: the sources of statehood’, including two additional papers and a revised introduction.

A comprehensive introduction to the historical forces and recent social and political developments that have shaped today's Armenian people. With contributions from leading Armenian, American and European specialists, the book focuses on identity formation, exploring how the Armenians' perceptions of themselves and their place in the world are informed by their history, culture and present-day situation. The book also covers contemporary politics, economy and society, and relates these to ongoing debates over future directions for the Armenian people, both in the homeland and in the diaspora communities.

Tajikistan is one of the lesser-known and least-researched former Soviet Central Asian republics. The birth of the new state in 1991 was followed closely by a civil war which killed more than 50,000 people and displaced many tens of thousands more. While a peace agreement was signed in 1997, significant political violence continued until 2001 and intermittent outbreaks still occur today. Many claim it remains a very weak state and perhaps in danger of state failure or a return to civil war. However, the revival of Tajikistan should not simply be seen in terms of its post-conflict stabilization. Since its creation as a republic of the Soviet Union in 1920s, Tajikistan has been transformed from being a shell for socialist engineering to become a national society under a modern state. Despite a multitude of economic, social and political shocks, the Republic of Tajikistan endures.This book places the transformation of Tajikistan in its Soviet and Post-Soviet historical settings and local and global contexts. It explores the sources of a state with Soviet roots but which has been radically transformed by independence and its exposure to global politics and economics. The authors address the sources of statehood in history, Islam and secularism, gender relations, the economy, international politics and security affairs.This book is a new edition of a special issue of Central Asian Survey, ‘Tajikistan: the sources of statehood’, including two additional papers and a revised introduction.

A comprehensive introduction to the historical forces and recent social and political developments that have shaped today's Armenian people. With contributions from leading Armenian, American and European specialists, the book focuses on identity formation, exploring how the Armenians' perceptions of themselves and their place in the world are informed by their history, culture and present-day situation. The book also covers contemporary politics, economy and society, and relates these to ongoing debates over future directions for the Armenian people, both in the homeland and in the diaspora communities.

How did Iran remain distinctively Iranian in the centuries which followed the Arab Conquest? How did it retain its cultural distinctiveness after the displacement of Zoroastrianism - state religion of the Persian empire - by Islam? This latest volume in "The Idea of Iran" series traces that critical moment in Iranian history which followed the transformation of ancient traditions during the country's conversion and initial Islamic period. Distinguished contributors (who include the late Oleg Grabar, Roy Mottahedeh, Alan Williams and Said Amir Arjomand) discuss, from a variety of literary, artistic, religious and cultural perspectives, the years around the end of the first millennium CE, when the political strength of the 'Abbasid Caliphate was on the wane, and when the eastern lands of the Islamic empire began to be take on a fresh 'Persianate' or 'Perso-Islamic' character. One of the paradoxes of this era is that the establishment throughout the eastern Islamic territories of new Turkish dynasties coincided with the genesis and spread, into Central and South Asia, of vibrant new Persian language and literatures.Exploring the nature of this paradox, separate chapters engage with ideas of kingship, authority and identity and their fascinating expression through the written word, architecture and the visual arts.

From their ancestral heartland by the shores of the Aral Sea, the medieval Oghuz Turks marched westwards in search of dominion. Their conquests led to control of a Muslim empire that united the territories of the Eastern Islamic world, melded Turkic and Persian influences and transported Persian culture to Anatolia. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the new Turkic-Persian symbiosis that had earlier emerged under the Samanids, Ghaznavids and Qarakha-nids came to fruition in a period that, under the enlightened rule of the Seljuq dynasty, combined imperial grandeur with remarkable artistic achievement. This latest volume in The Idea of Iran series focuses on a system of government based on Turkic 'men of the sword' and Persian 'men of the pen' that the Seljuqs (famous foes of the Crusader Frankish knights) consolidated in a form that endured for centuries. The book further explores key topics relating to the innovative Seljuq era, including: conflicted Sunni-Shi'a relations between the Sunni Seljuq Empire and Ismaili Fatimid caliphate; architecture, art and culture; and politics and poetry.Istvan Vasary looks back in Chapter 1 to the early history of the Turks in the wider Iranian world, discussing the debates about the dating and distribution of the early Turkish presence in Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan.NizaAZm al-Mulk is the subject of Chapter 2, in which Carole Hillenbrand subjects this 'maverick vizier' to critical scrutiny. While paying due credit to his extraordinary achievements, she does not shy away from concluding that his career illustrates the maxim that 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. A fitting antagonist for NizaAZm al-Mulk is the subject of Chapter 3, in which Farhad Daftary follows the career of the remarkable revolutionary leader Hasan-i SabbaAZh and the history of the Ismaili state-within-a-state that he founded with his capture of the fortress of Alamt in 1090. In Chapter 4 David Durand-Guedy examines the Seljuq Empire from the viewpoint of its (western) capital, Isfahan. He concentrates on the distinction between the parts of Iran to the west of the great deserts (and in close connection to Iraq and Baghdad) and the parts to the east, notably Khorasan, with its ties to Transoxiana and Tokharestan.Vanessa Van Renterghem in Chapter 5 challenges the long-held view that the Seljuq takeover of Baghdad represented a liberation of the Abbasid caliphs from their burden-some subordination to the heretical Buyids.Alexey Khismatulin in Chapter 6 presents a forensic examination of two important works of literature, casting doubt on the authorship of both the Siyar al-muluAZk attributed to NizaAZm al-Mulk and the NasAZhat al-muluAZk ascribed to al-GhazaAZlAZ. In Chapter 7 Asghar Seyed-Gohrab discusses the poetry of the Ghaznavid and Seljuq periods, demonstrating the poets' mastery of metaphor and of extended description and riddling to build suspense. The final chapter by Robert Hillenbrand shifts the focus from texts and literature to architecture and to that pre-eminent Seljuq masterpiece, the Friday Mosque of Isfaha

I.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage FoundationThe Safavid era is of special significance in the history of Iran. Under the Safavids - between the sixteenth and the mideighteenth century - Iran was transformed and a state emerged which was the forerunner of the Iran of today in several important ways. The age is known for its wealth of contributions to Persian culture and to the arts of the Islamic world, its robust military encounters with its Ottoman and Mughal neighbours and growing contacts with western Europe. With the exception of diplomatic and commercial contacts with western European countries, little is known about the Safavids' foreign relations - their commercial, cultural, social and political exchanges with the rest of the world. Iran and the World in the Safavid Age presents the most recent research into Safavid Iran's foreign relations. It challenges the long-held notion that, with the adoption of Shi'ism, Iranians retreated into relative isolation, suggesting rather that they engaged with the world in unprecedented and exciting ways. With contributions from the leading authorities in the field, Iran and the World in the Safavid Age explores Iran's relations with other countries and cultures.Examining how Iran was itself perceived as well as how it viewed the outside world, this groundbreaking book sheds new light on the history of Iran's relations with the world beyond its borders and expands our understanding of this pivotal period.

In the early Islamic age, the city of Balkh was one of the largest and most influential cities in the world. Situated on the northern plains of modern Afghanistan, Balkh flourished from the 7th to the 13th centuries, home to a wide variety of scholars, artists and religious leaders.This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the history and archaeology of early Islamic Balkh. Archaeological research undertaken throughout the twentieth century has investigated the evolution of the city, but only more recently has the evidence for its medieval development been pieced together. The authors collate and examine the available textual and artefactual material in order to recreate the history of this unique city and assess its critical role in early medieval Eurasia.