Martha Brill Olcott: 4 books

Tajikistan teeters on the brink of failure. This mountainous and landlocked country, the poorest in Central Asia, confronts the challenges of good governance and economic survival. These domestic struggles become even more problematic as international forces prepare to withdraw from neighboring Afghanistan,...

In Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous country, Islam has been an ever-present factor in the lives of its people and a contentious force for political officials trying to build a secular and authoritarian government. In the Whirlwind of Jihad examines the intertwined and evolving relationships...

At the outset of independence 18 years ago, Kazakhstan's leaders promised that the country's rich natural resources, with oil and gas reserves among the largest in the world, would soon bring economic prosperity. It appeared that democracy was beginning to take hold in this newly independent state....

With a rapidly growing population, deteriorating economic and environmental conditions, and an unstable imperial centre, Soviet Central Asia would seem destined to become one of the world's trouble spots. Why then the apparent political quiet? This book argues that this perception is, in itself, a...