The History of Central Asia

Christoph Baumer devotes the second book of his four-volume history of Central Asia to the Silk Roads, those extraordinarily significant routes that linked the Eurasian civilizations. He provides an excellent description, focusing on their importance in cultural diffusion. In this well-written survey, Baumer offers the reader a clear portrait of the array of societies that flourished along the Silk Roads. Just as valuable, he emphasizes the means by which religions, methods of governance, and technological innovations spread across Eurasia. He enlivens the text with colorful depictions of rulers, commanders, and voyagers who played notable roles in Silk Roads history. Well-versed in the secondary literature, Baumer provides fine coverage of the Silk Roads' numerous influences on civilizations.' -Morris Rossabi, Distinguished Professor of History, The City University of New York 'In an age of specialists, Christoph Baumer is a rare creature: a generalist. Explorer, archaeologist, adventurer, enthusiast, historian, photographer - no one could be better qualified to tackle a subject so vast in time and space. He must be a book lover, for this, the first of four volumes on the subject, is a gorgeous creation, with creamy paper, crisp design and perfect colour pictures ... A cultural guidebook on a grand scale... [it] is stamped with his personality ... The start of a truly monumental undertaking.' - Literary review 'the age of the steppe warriors is as magnificent as it is magisterial. From landscapes and ancient stelae to artefacts of gold, bronze, wood and even textile, the book is filled with images that are in turn fascinating, mysterious and dazzling. For the most part, the photos are of places that are inaccessible to most of us or of artefacts from museums in Russia and Central Asia that few readers will have ever visited ... the age of the steppe warriors is a beautiful, evocative and thought-provoking book.' -Asian Review of Books