March of Central Asia

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March of Central Asia is the chronicle of the March of all Central Asia (East Central Asia: Tibet and Xinjiang, and West Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan), the central region of the continent of Asia, through twenty centuries from the ancient time to the present. It tells of the condition and circumstance of all Central Asia, its episodes and encounters, and the routes taken by its society and its patterns during this March through the ages. Central Asia has marched down the pathway of history since antiquity. The March of prehistory Central Asia is obscure. This obscurity lifted with Cyrus the Great (r. BC 557-530) of Iran, who opened Central Asia to history, and the world Alexander the Great (BC 356-323) of Macedon, Zhang Qian (BC 158-115) of China, Qutayba ibn Muslim (668-715 AD) of Arabia, Chingiz Khan (1165-1227 AD) of the Mongols, Emir Timur (1336-1405 AD) the most heroic and greatest political of Central Asia itself, generals and commissars and huntsmen and explorers have marched over its high mountain passes and through its deep valleys and deserts during two millennia and more. There has also been the March of peoples and ideas, poets and philosophers, ambassadors and merchants and pilgrims and travellers, and those who advanced this long March as well as those who hindered it. Central Asia is no longer the Shangri-La of legend or "lost horizon". Its epic March, however, continues as ever. The book March of Central Asia will advance readers’ knowledge of Central Asia and amuse their gleeful delectation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ram Rahul

Ram Rahul is a foremost scholar and doyen of Central Asian Studies. He was awarded fellowship by Rockefeller Foundation to study Central Asia during 1952-54. In 1959 he received the first-ever UGC fellowship for Central Asia in Indian School of International Studies, New Delhi. Then he joined the Indian School of international Studies as Reader/Associate Professor in Deptt. of Central Asian History and Institutions. He retired as Professor of Central Asian Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Soon after retirement, he taught the history of Central Asia abroad. The UNESCO gave him a short fellowship to visit centers of Central Asian studies in Europe in 1971. The Ford Foundation (New Delhi) gave him a grant to visit centres of Central Asian studies in the United States in 1981. During 1982-83 residencies of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in Bellagio (Italy) and Washington, DC enabled him to work on the historiography of Central Asia from the ancient time to 1949-50. The UNESCO invited him to its consultation meetings on the civilizations of Central Asia during 1968-73. It also invited him to attend conferences on Central Asia held in Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Prof. Ram Rahul has extensively traveled in Asia and elsewhere in connection with Central Asian studies. Other than contributions to the house journal International Studies, he has written ten articles for international journals and more than 25 books such as Central Asia: A Textbook History.