In the tracks of Tamerlane: Central Asia's path to the twenty‐first century

Abstract

While there is hardly a corner of the world that has not been affected in one way or another by the events of 11 September 2001, the repercussions are especially evident in the region once known as Soviet Central Asia. Previously a backwater of world politics, the attention focused on this area comes at a time when the countries and people there are already in the process of coming to grips with the major change in their status brought about by the breakup of the Soviet Union a scant ten years ago. Even if proximity to Afghanistan and the hiding place of Osama bin Laden were not the catalyst for this attention, the fact that the region sits astride some of the largest known gas and oil reserves in the world had already brought a fair amount of notoriety to this region.