Although Uzbekistan was established as an independent state in 1991, the rich history of the people and culture extend back thousands of years. Historical Dictionary of Uzbekistan covers several thousand years of Central Asian history, with emphasis on the period from the establishment of a territorialized entity under the Soviet regime called the Uzbek SSR, up through the period of the independent Republic of Uzbekistan. Historical Dictionary of Uzbekistan contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Uzbekistan.

The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan chronicles this country through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 600 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, and institutions, as well as significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects.

This new edition of Historical Dictionary of Azerbaijan contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture.

This Dictionary supplies essential information for anyone interested in the country of region, including librarians, students, scholars, and diplomats. It offers insight into the old kingdoms and empires, the old communist state, and now the independent republic. This is conveyed mainly through numerous entries on persons, places, events, institutions, ethnic groups, political, economic, social, and cultural issues.

Turkmenistan is known for its huge oil and gas resources, as well as for the rich, complex, and captivating history of the Turkmen people. For centuries they were known as skillful and courageous warriors who left deep marks in the histories of other countries, such as India, Russia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Egypt. As craftsmen, they constructed extraordinary architectural monuments, whose ruins can be found all over the country, and famous Turkoman carpets are still highly valued in many parts of the world. Yet, for centuries, foreign invaders and local tribal conflict plagued the land with wars that devastated the Turkmen society and destroyed its magnificent but fragile oases. In the late 19th century, the Turkmens witnessed the establishment of the Russian Empire in their lands. In the years following, these lands were united by the Soviet government into a single political entity in an attempt to force the Soviet style nation-state building and socio-economic transformations. In 1991, the Turkmen parliament voted for the country's independence and promised to build a sovereign state capable of bringing prosperity and social and political stability to the society. The reality, however, proved to be more complex. After more than 15 years of independence, Turkmenistan still faces a number of difficulties, including economic and structural issues, security challenges, growing competition between various clans, and widespread poverty. Historical Dictionary of Turkmenistan provides a concise overview of the historical development of Turkmenistan. The introduction and chronology provide an overview of the Turkmen history, focusing on the history of the country in the 20th century, political and economic development, ethnic policies, and nation building. This is the first comprehensive reference book on Turkmenistan published in English that provides comprehensive up-to-date details about the contemporary history, economy, and culture. The dictionary consists of approximately 300 entries a

This interdisciplinary book considers national identity through the lens of urban spaces. By bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines, The City as Power provides broad comparative perspectives about the critical importance of urban landscapes as forums for creating, maintaining, and contesting identity and belonging. Rather than serving as passive backdrops, urban spaces and places are active mediums for defining categories of inclusion—and exclusion. With an international scope and ready appeal to visual learners, the book offers a compelling survey of historical and contemporary efforts to enact state ideals, express counter-narratives, and negotiate global trends in cities. The contributors show how successive regimes reshape cityscapes to mirror their respective socio-political agendas, perspectives on history, and assumptions of power. Yet they must do so within the legal, ethnic, religious, social, economic, and cultural geographies inherited from previous regimes. Exploring the rich diversity of urban space, place, and national identity, the book compares core elements of identity projects in a range of political, cultural, and socioeconomic settings. By focusing on the built form and urban settings for social movements, protest, and even organized violence, this timely book demonstrates that cities are not simply lived in but also lived through.

At its peak, the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) was the largest secret police and espionage organization in the world. It became so influential in Soviet politics that several of its directors moved on to become premiers of the Soviet Union. In fact, Russian president Vladimir V. Putin is a former head of the KGB. The GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie) is the principal intelligence unit of the Russian armed forces, having been established in 1920 by Leon Trotsky during the Russian civil war. The GRU was the first subordinate to the KGB, and while the KGB broke up with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the GRU remains intact, cohesive, highly efficient, and with far greater resources than its civilian counterparts. These are just two of the long list of Russian and Soviet intelligence agencies that are covered in the Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence. Through a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on organizations like the Oprichnina, Okhrana, GPU, NKVD, KGB, GRU, Smersh, SVR, and FSB, a clear picture of the history of this subject is presented. Entries also cover Soviet and Russian leaders, leading intelligence and security officers, the Lenin and Stalin purges, the Gulag, and noted espionage cases.

The Historical Dictionary of Environmentalism strategically skips across issues, concepts, time, organizations, and cultures, not with any pretense of producing a definitive dictionary but rather with the aim of producing an inclusive, wide-ranging, and global history of environmentalism. This is done through a chronology, a list of acronyms and abbreviations, an introductory essay, and over 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries.

The most broadly accepted explanation of Sufism is the etymological derivation of the term from the Arabic for “wool,” ṣūf, associating practitioners with a preference for poor, rough clothing. This explanation clearly identifies Sufism with ascetical practice and the importance of manifesting spiritual poverty through material poverty. In fact, some of the earliest “Western” descriptions of individuals now widely associated with the larger phenomenon of Sufism identified them with the Arabic term faqīr, mendicant, or its most common Persian equivalent, darwīsh. Sufism, as presented here embraces a host of features including the ritual, institutional, psychological, hermeneutical, artistic, literary, ethical, and epistemological. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Sufism contains a chronology, an introduction, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, major historical figures and movements, practices, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Sufism.

The second edition of Historical Dictionary of Human Rights explores both the theory and the practice of international human rights with a focus on the norms and institutions that make up the “architecture” of the global human rights regime and the tools, processes and procedures through which such norms are realized and “enforced.” Particular attention is given to the contextual political and sociological factors that shape and constrain the operation and functioning of international human rights institutions and their state and non-state actors. This is done through a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1.000 cross-referenced entries on terminology, conventions, treaties, intergovernmental organizations in the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations, as well as some of the pioneers and defenders. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about human rights.