New Books in Central Asian Studies

Marshall Poe
  • 4.7 (16)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Biweekly

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

  1. 2d ago

    Diana T. Kudaibergen, "What Does It Mean to Be Kazakhstani?: Power, Identity and Nation-Building" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    In early 2022, protests rocked Kazakhstan. Initially peaceful demonstrations turned violent after brutal government crackdowns, leaving at least 238 dead during "Bloody January." Many feared the unrest might fracture the country along ethno-linguistic lines—yet ethnicity played little role. It was deep socio-economic grievances and anti-regime sentiment that brought people onto the streets. In What Does It Mean to Be Kazakhstani?: Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Central Asia (Oxford University Press, 2024), Diana T. Kudaibergen asks why. Building on unpublished archival materials and hundreds of interviews, she examines how Kazakhstan developed a relatively stable inter-ethnic framework where others fractured, how regime elites and ordinary citizens have pulled that identity in different directions, and how Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the Russian immigration it has prompted, is once again transforming what it means to call oneself Kazakhstani. Cholpon Ramizova is a London-based creator and researcher. She holds a Master's in Migration, Mobility and Development from SOAS, University of London. Her thematic interests are in migration, displacement, identity, gender and nationalism—and in the ways these intersect within the Central Asia context.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

    58 min

  2. Jul 2

    Chinese EVs: From Nordic Streets to Central Asian Hubs

    Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy. While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China’s control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray’s fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here. Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master’s Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

  3. Jul 2

    Olivier Hein, "Mother of the World: The Remarkable History of Turkmenistan" (Hurst, 2026)

    Turkmenistan rarely makes international headlines–and when it did, it was often stories that highlighted things like the strange cult of personality that surrounded Saparmurat Niyazov, its first post-Soviet president, who named months after himself and made his memoir required reading. Olivier Hein joins us on the show today to talk about Turkmenistan’s long history: as a possible origin for Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic faith; the rise of Merv, at one point possibly one of the world’s largest cities; the emergence of the Turkmen; and how this region ended up becoming the crossroads of empires. Olivier’s work is now a book Mother of the World: The Remarkable History of Turkmenistan (Hurst, 2026) Olivier Hein is a Mauritian-British author whose books include Star and Key: The Historical Adventure of Mauritius and Borneo: The History of an Enigma. Formerly a UN, UK and OSCE diplomat, posted to New York, Paris, Kosovo and Turkmenistan, he also contributes to The Chap magazine. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

    54 min

  4. Jun 26

    Benjamin J. Nourse, "The Power of Publishing in Early Modern Tibetan Buddhism"(Lexington Books, 2025)

    The Power of Publishing in Early Modern Tibetan Buddhism (Lexington Books, 2025) is a rich exploration of the history of Tibetan books during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Looking at this ‘golden age’ of book production, Benjamin Nourse focuses on two core topics: What was driving Tibetan publishing in the eighteenth century, and what happened as a result of that growth? How should we understand Tibetan Buddhist ideas and practices related to religious books? Through individual chapters on publishing in Lhasa, Qing Beijing, Derge, Chone, and Labrang, Nourse shows how Tibetan books operated simultaneously as religious objects, political tools, and markers of cultural authority. Across each, we see books being used in different ways: as a way of cementing the authority of the Fifth Dalai Lama, as part of Beijing’s emergence as a major center for Tibetan Buddhist publishing, and as objects that people engaged with through reading, chanting, translation, and ritual practice. This book should naturally appeal to those interested in Tibetan Buddhism, religion, and early modern Asia — but it is also a valuable contribution to book history, print culture, and the study of how the production of books can shape political authority and religious practice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

    1h 12m

  5. Jun 15

    David Leupold, "The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities: Urban Futures and Their Afterlives" (Routledge, 2026)

    What does it mean, three decades after the demise of the USSR, to inhabit cities built for a future that has never arrived? In pursuit of the question—what is left of the socialist city?—this book aims not only to trace the material and mnemonic remains of the socialist city,  but to show how the Soviet discourse of the city at times engendered radical ideas that challenged the narrow confines of state socialism itself. These ideas are, for instance, the efforts of Esperanto-speaking internationalists from Czechoslovakia to build the internationalist city from below in the Central Asian steppe, the quest of Armenian Futurists to root the architectural style of Soviet Armenia in the country’s Persianate heritage, or a Jewish-Kyrgyz philosopher's vision of turning a science town in the hinterland of Moscow into the first ecopolis of the USSR. In an effort to rethink the life and afterlife of the Soviet city from its geographical South, The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities: Urban Futures and Their Afterlives (Routledge, 2026) explores the material and immaterial legacies of socialist-era urbanization in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. To this end, it embarks on a historical and ethnographic journey to urban sites in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. In a quest to reconstruct competing visions of urbanity that emerged from within the Soviet South, using varied empirical sources in Armenian, Czech, Kyrgyz, and Russian, the book outlines four urban visions: bottom-up urbanity, rooted urbanity, polycentric urbanity, and ecocentric urbanity. By understanding the social vision of a "socialist city of the future" beyond the political center in its trans-local independence, the book highlights the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Soviet South and its historical embeddedness within the regional dynamics of the Global South. David Leupold is a sociologist, scholar of memory wars and research fellow in the ERC-funded research project REVENANT: Revivals of Empire. He is the author of the prize-winning book Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish Memory (2021), the former principal investigator of the DFG-funded research project Future Images of the Past (2021–2025), and a current resource scholar for the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies (Middlebury Institute of International Studies). He lives in Berlin.  This interview was conducted by Ernest Lee, PhD student at the University of Chicago. He researches the history of postcolonial energy through the lens of development, infrastructure and environment, with a focus on West Africa and Southeast Asia.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

    51 min

  6. Jun 8

    Dating Apps, Queer Stigma, and Digital Intimacy in Kazakhstan

    How queer men in Kazakhstan navigate dating apps in a context of stigma, surveillance, and limited legal protections. It shows how platforms like Grindr, Hornet, Tinder, and VKontakte function as spaces where trust, visibility, and safety must be continuously negotiated. This episode explores how queer men in Kazakhstan navigate dating apps in contexts shaped by stigma, surveillance, and limited legal protections. Drawing on interviews and platform analysis in Shymkent and Almaty, the research challenges the idea of dating apps as neutral or purely liberating spaces, showing instead how they function as ‘ambivalent infrastructures’ where connection is always intertwined with risk. Rather than simple tools for meeting partners, apps like VKontakte, Grindr, Hornet, and Tinder are used as distinct social environments that require careful interpretation and strategy. Users constantly assess authenticity, safety, and potential harm, often moving across multiple platforms, starting with apps, then shifting to messaging services like WhatsApp or Telegram, and using calls and additional checks to verify identity before meeting offline. Set against Kazakhstan’s broader socio-political context, where queer visibility can lead to harassment, outing, or violence, the episode highlights how digital intimacy becomes a form of ongoing risk management. It ultimately reframes dating apps not as spaces of free connection, but as complex systems where trust, visibility, and safety must be continuously negotiated. Yerkebulan Sairambay is a scholar at risk based at the Centre for Oriental studies in the University of Tartu (Estonia). His research interests involve, but are not limited to, the following areas of expertise: political participation, new media, civil society, climate change, clan politics, democratisation, queer studies, academic freedom, transitional justice, and nation- and state- building with a particular focus on the countries of post-communist Europe and former Soviet Union. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, and IMRCEES Erasmus Mundus Master’s Double Degrees in Russian, Central and East European studies (University of Glasgow) and political science (Corvinus University of Budapest). The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

  7. Apr 21

    Stephen F. Jones, "The First Social Democracy: The Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918–1921" (Harvard UP, 2026)

    Following the collapse of the Russian Empire, the small nation of Georgia established its independence in May 1918. Its leaders surprised the world by creating the first social democratic state. Based on a combination of parliamentarianism and direct democracy, it was a representative government of the peasants and workers themselves, with ballots in their hands. The First Social Democracy: The Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918–1921 (Harvard University Press, 2026) is the definitive history of a government that should inspire social democrats today. Professor Stephen F. Jones chronicles how the founders of the new state navigated myriad challenges, including territorial threats from abroad, internal ethnic conflicts, and geopolitical rivalries between the imperial Ottomans, the British, and the Germans. In the midst of these existential challenges, Georgia’s social democrats set about writing a constitution to put the country on a distinctive path of genuine self-government—protecting democratic rights, promoting political pluralism, and championing equality. Professor Jones brings to life the passionate debates that shaped Georgia’s democracy during a moment of acute global instability. The Democratic Republic of Georgia was strangled in its crib. Just four days after the constitution was ratified, the capital fell to the Red Army. Under Soviet rule, the republic was lost to history. Soviet scholars were forbidden to research this Georgian story, and Western scholars had little interest in a small and peripheral state that was independent for only three years. Recovering a forgotten experiment in democratic citizenship and statecraft, Dr. Jones reminds us of those audacious times when Georgians created and defended political freedom against the rise of Soviet communism. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

    1h 5m

  8. Feb 26

    Warwick Ball, "Ancient Civilizations of Afghanistan: From the Earliest Times to the Mongol Conquest" (Reaktion, 2025)

    Today, Afghanistan–if it ever reaches global headlines–is portrayed as an unstable land, known more for the wars great powers fight (and often lose) on its territory. Yet for most of human history, Afghanistan wasn’t on the margins of civilizations, but a cultural hub in its own right. In his new book, Ancient Civilizations of Afghanistan: From the Earliest Times to the Mongol Conquest (Reaktion Books, 2025), archaeologist Warwick Ball argues that this land was a center where the worlds of Iran, India, Central Asia, and even the Mediterranean met and mingled. Ball takes readers from the Bronze Age Oxus and Helmand civilizations through Greek Bactria, the Kushan Empire, the spread of Buddhism, and the rise of powerful Islamic dynasties. Warwick Ball is an archaeologist and author who spent over twenty years carrying out excavations, architectural studies and monumental restoration throughout the Middle East. He is the author of many books on the history and archaeology of the region including The Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Ancient Civilizations of Afghanistan. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

    46 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.7
out of 5
16 Ratings

About

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/central-asian-studies

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