Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating, well-written review of volatile area
Review: Mr. Thurbron's prose is beautiful and informative, and he offers a depth of understanding of this little-known area of the world that is generally not seen in travel logs. This book is particularly helpful in understanding the consequences of Soviet Communism and the Cold War on the environmental and socio-economic issues confronting Central Asia today. This was a real joy to read and has opened my eyes to the importance of this region of the world to modern politics.
Rating:
Summary: excellent insight into the people,their diversity,their past
Review: Mr.Thubron more than describes this vast land with a history of thousands of years of tribal and ethnic intermixing.The specters of Tamerlane and Ghengis Kahn live in ancient deserted palaces and fortresses. The people,Turks,Tajics,Uzbecs,Mongol and Russian,German Huegenotts ,Armenians struggle with the aftermath of the failure of Communism. A newly rising Moslem fundamentalism seeks to atone for the economic devastation. The past is a lurid tale of riches,despotism,and devastation. The future is unknown.
Rating:
Summary: A journey to the heart of the Asian landmass.
Review: What was it like when the breakdown of the Soviet Union unleashed the desires of Central Asians for self-governance and the expression of ethnic and cultural identities that had matured several centuries back? What happened when "the honeymoon was over" and the independent nations found themselves grappling with the problems of economic self-sufficiency and ethnic rivalries? I highly recommend this book as this was, to my knowledge, one of the first first-person accounts of a culturally and historically complex region that was "opened" to the outside world after the demise of communism in the world's largest nation.This book also qualifies as a pleasurably readable armchair travelogue. Colin's exquisite prose took me to far-flung, almost mysterious places, peopled by different ethnic groups, some of whom originated thousands of miles to the west, separated also by millennia. The images and sensations of the Pamirs, the Tien Shan, and Kopet Dagh mountains flashed at me as I delved in his travelogue. To the Western reader, this region remains less explored yet has so much to offer with its variegated ethnocultural makeup and its complex and imaginably stunning topography (from Thubron's descriptions and from the few pictures that I have seen of the Pamirs and Tien Shan mountains). Indeed, I am thankful to a friend who gave me this book as a Christmas gift in 1994.
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