This book argues that literacy functions as a means of tracking social change in modern Mongolia. Its leaders have used literacy to promote new ways of living and socialist identities. In post-socialist Mongolia, literacy expresses the anxieties that Mongolians feel as they navigate globalism and express conflicting identities.

This collection provides a broad examination of contemporary Uzbekistan. The contributors analyze its geostrategic significance, its economic potential, and its demographic importance. This study also argues that the country's political, social, and cultural evolutions symbolize the transformations of the region as a whole.

This study examines the role of the European Union in Central Asian affairs. The author analyzes the various ways the European Union exerts influence in a region where other global powers have dominant positions and emphasizes the Central Asian states themselves as subjects and actors.

This study examines the relationship between the Azerbaijani state and its society in the post-Soviet period. The author analyzes the growing cooperation between secular and religious sectors, the normalization of Islamic discourse, and elite attitudes toward Islam.

This study examines informal institutions of reciprocity and their connections to state-building in Kazakhstan. The author analyzes both how these institutions changed over time and how they bridged the transition from the Soviet to post-Soviet periods.

This collection provides a broad analysis of social, political, economic, and security issues in contemporary Central Asia. In particular, the contributors highlight the differences and similarities among the region's states in how they have consolidated statehood since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This collection provides a broad and multidisciplinary examination of contemporary Tajikistan. The contributors analyze the political regime--its stability, legitimacy mechanisms, and patterns of centralization--as well as various aspects of its social fabric.

This study provides a comprehensive account of the civil war that erupted in Tajikistan in 1992. Based on a wide range of primary sources, it analyzes the conflict's long-term historical and structural roots as well as its short-term causes, including the rapid dismantling of the Soviet Union and the revival of Islamic and nationalist forces.