Since Olufsen and Schulz published their monographs on the Pamirs in 1904 and 1914, respectively, this is the first book to deal with the history, anthropology and recent social and economic development of the Pamiri people in Gorno-Badakhshan, Eastern Tajikistan. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, such high mountain areas were more or less forgotten and people would have suffered severely from their isolation if an Aga Khan Foundation project in 1993 to 1994 had not afforded broader support. The reader will be confronted by an almost surrealistic world: Pamiri income and living...