The Dust Of Empire The Race For Mastery In The Asian Heartland

by Meyer, Karl E.

• ISBN13: 9781586482411
• ISBN10: 1586482416
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-07-07
• Publisher: PublicAffairs

Summary

When Charles de Gaulle learned that France's former colonies in Africa had chosen independence, the great general shrugged dismissively, "They are the dust of empire." But as Americans have learned, particles of dust from remote and seemingly medieval countries can, at great human and material cost, jam the gears of a superpower. InThe Dust of Empire, Karl E. Meyer examines the present and past of the Asian heartland in a book that blends scholarship with reportage, providing fascinating detail about regions and peoples now of urgent concern to America: the five Central Asian republics, the Caspian and the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and long-dominant Russia. He provides the context for America's war on terrorism, for Washington's search for friends and allies in an Islamic world rife with extremism, and for the new politics of pipelines and human rights in an area richer in the former than the latter. He offers a rich and complicated tapestry of a region where empires have so often come to griefa cautionary tale.

Author Biography

Karl E. Meyer has taught at Princeton, Yale, and Tufts Universities.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Prologue: Pax Britannica, Squared	p. xv
Patterns of Mastery, British and American	p. 1
Russia: The Long Talons of Memory	p. 29
Iran: The Agonies of Non-sovereignty	p. 51
Pakistan: Sins of Partition	p. 83
Afghanistan: In a Dark Defile	p. 113
The Caucasus: A Bedlam of Identity	p. 139
Central Asia: Invented States, Real Godfathers	p. 169
Epilogue: "What Is to Be Done?"	p. 199
Notes on Sources	p. 215
Select Bibliography	p. 225
Acknowledgements	p. 235
Permissions	p. 238
Index	p. 239
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