Geography, Environment, and Culture

Amitai, Reuven and Michal Biran, eds.  Mongols, Turks, and Others Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World.  (Leiden: Brill, 2005).  Several useful essays on nomad-settled relations.  Primarily but not entirely pre-modern period.

Barfield, Thomas.  “Turk, Persian and Arab: Changing Relationships between Tribes and State in Iran and Along its Frontier,” in Nikki Keddie and Rudi Mathee, eds. Iran and the Surrounding World (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), pp. 61–86.

Barfield, T. “Tribe and State Relations: the Inner Asian Perspective,” in Philip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, eds., Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East (Berkeley: U of California Press,1991) pp. 153–185.  Contrasts the internal structure of Central Asian tribes with those of the Middle East, and explains how structural differences created political differences.

Blanchard, Ian. “Cultural and Economic Activities in the Nomadic Societies of the Trans-Pontine Steppe.” International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds. 12–15 July 2004.

Bradburd, Daniel.  “Territoriality and Iranian Pastoralists: Looking out from Kerman,” in Michael Casimir and Aparna Rao, Mobility and Territoriality: Social and Spatial Boundaries among Foragers, Fishers, Pastoralists and Peripatetics (Oxford: Berg, 1992, pp. 309–328). Discusses patron-client relationships and the creation of tribes based on political or economic utility.

Casimir, Michael J. and Aparna Rao, eds.  Mobility and Territoriality. Social and Spatial Boundaries among Foragers, Fishers, Pastoralists and Peripatetics (Oxford: Berg, 1992).  Introductory essay by Casimir (pp. 1–26) is a good overview of anthropological theories of “territoriality” among mobile peoples. He considers the interactions of environmental constraints, population density, and social structures.

Christian, David. “Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History,” Journal of World History, 11/1 (2000), pp. 1–26.  Study of the silk roads as ancient pathways for environmental as well as mercantile exchange.

Christian, D.  History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).  Pages xv–xvii and 3–20 deal nicely with geography and environment.

Duara, Prasenjit.  “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When,” in Geoff Eley and Ron Suny, eds. Becoming National.  A Reader.  Very dense writing style, but pp. 168–170 has interesting discussion of “hard” vs “soft” boundaries between peoples and their shifting nature.

Esenova, Saulesh.  “Soviet Nationality, Identity, and Ethnicity in Central Asia: Historic Narratives and Kazakh Ethnic Identity,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs Vol. 22, No. 1(2002): 11–38.  Direct examples of Kazakh oral genealogical traditions in practice.

Geiss, Paul Georg.  Pre-Tsarist and Tsarist Central Asia: Communal Commitment and political order in change (London: Routledge, 2003).   Based on wide reading in secondary sources.  He argues that the concept of “communal commitment” is preferable to “identity” in discussing Central Asian tribes.  Use directly only in short excerpts or for advanced students; the writing is dense and sometimes the English is convoluted. Very helpful first chapter on definitions of “tribe.”

Irons, William G.  “Nomadism as a Political Adaptation: the Case of the Yomut Turkmen,” American Ethnologist 1, 4(1974): pp. 635–658.  A compact case study.

Lindner, Rudi Paul.  “What was a Nomadic Tribe?” Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 24, No. 4(1982): 689–711.  Discussion of how anthropologists have tried to codify clan structures.  Lindner’s article has been critiqued by Richard Tapper, “Anthropologists, Historians, and Tribespeople on Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East,” in Khoury and Kostiner, eds.,  Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, (Berkeley: U of California Press,1991) pp. 48–73.

Manz, Beatrice F.  “Multi-Ethnic Empires and the Formulation of Identity,” Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 26, No. 1(Jan. 2003): 70–101.  Very clear comparison of the place of territory and identity in European and Middle Eastern empires.

Martin, Virgina. Law and Custom in the Steppe: The Kazakhs of the Middle Horde and Rusian Colonialism in the Nineteenth Century. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001.  Has a good discussion of Kazak social structures, pp. 17–24.

Perdue, Peter C. China Marches West: the Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005, pp. 19–50. Excellent essay on geography and environment of Central Asia, including full-color maps and photographs. Covers topography, climate, disease, and domesticated animals.