The republics of Central Asia re-emerged as independent actors in the global interstate system in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, their varied histories and geographies offering many different possible opportunities and course of action. In order to explain their often confusing and complicated foreign policy alignments, many analysts have turned again to the theories of Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947), the British geographer who is widely regarded as the founding father of geopolitics. This book brings together historical geographers and political scientists to explore this...

Nick Megoran explores the process of building independent nation-states in post-Soviet Central Asia through the lens of the disputed border territory between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In his rich -biography- of the boundary, he employs a combination of political, cultural, historical, ethnographic, and geographic frames to shed new light on nation-building process in this volatile and geopolitically significant region.
Megoran draws on twenty years of extensive research in the borderlands via interviews, observations, participation, and newspaper analysis. He considers the problems of...