Through innovative approaches in the environmental humanities, the authors of this collective volume explore the vital cultures and economies of the five countries of Central Asia, a region of mountains and glaciers, deserts and treeless steppe, and rivers plundered for irrigation and industrial purposes. They reveal the complex interactions between humans and nature, and between economic development imperatives and environmental protection strategies, all against the backdrop of powerful agricultural and political traditions. The authors go far beyond analysis of Soviet colonialism, providing rich interdisciplinary and universal perspectives in commodity, water and animal histories whose messages are based on eyewitness accounts, scientific sources, government documents, literary works and on reeds, apricots and horses.
Paul R. Josephson, Professor Emeritus, Colby College, USA
With Environmental Humanities in Central Asia, editors Jeanne Feaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati have mapped out a generous, interdisciplinary invitation to a new field. A diverse collective of scholars junior, senior, Central Asian, global has anchored a theoretically sophisticated, well-structured vision in a provocative set of empirical studies. The books large tent subsumes apricots, antelopes, bees, horses, and reeds; oil, pasturage, community water management, and Soviet-era hydraulics; historical legacies, authoritarianism, and activism around pollution and extractivism; environmental imaginaries, fiction, sacredness, and cosmologies. Organized around four core relationship themes -- extractivism, protection, enspiriting, and fear -- the book dissolves disciplinary boundaries, challenges assumptions, and provides roadmaps for additional research.
Judith Schapiro, Professor, American University, Washington, D.C., USA
