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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN num: 9780061577673
ISBN number: 0061577677
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 400
Printing Date: July 01, 2008
Publishing house: Harper Perennial
Release Date: July 01, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 88834
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Product Description:
A land of enormous proportions, countless secrets, and incredible history, Central Asia was the heart of the great Mongol empire of Tamerlane and scene of Stalin's cruelest deportations. A remote and fascinating region in a constant state of transition—never more so than since the collapse of the Soviet Union—it encompasses terrain as diverse as the Kazakh steppes, the Karakum desert, and the Pamir mountains. In The Lost Heart of Asia, acclaimed, bestselling travel writer Colin Thubron carries readers on an extraordinary journey through this little understood, rarely visited, yet increasingly important corner of the world.
Amazon.com Review:
West of China, south of Russia, hemmed in by mountains, steppe, and desert, lie the five Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Cut loose from Moscow in the early '90s, the five 'Stans' (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan) discover that their newly found freedom plays tug-o-war with despair and a nostalgia for the certainties of the Soviet past. It's during this time that author Colin Thubron travels the width of central Asia, asking questions about the past, present, and future. Not content to simply bounce from place to place, Thubron travels from person to person, uncovering their many vibrant stories and developing a deep understanding of the area's lesser-known history. Kyrgyz and Uzbeks debate the place of Islam. Koreans and Germans, descendants from forced migrants, wonder if they know enough of their ethnic tongue to return to their homelands. Russians find themselves left behind, disbelieving, as the tide of Russian power recedes toward Moscow.
Central Asia was mostly off limits to foreigners during the Soviet years, and while officials are still uncertain about how to deal with a backpack-wearing solo traveler, the locals Thubron meets are not. Thubron finds the heart of Asia in the hearts of its people, swimming in a sea of tea, vodka, and hospitality. From the oldest-known Quran to a deserted Soviet naval base on the shores of a high mountain lake 1,500 miles from the ocean (used to test torpedoes far from spying eyes), Thubron's writing echoes the melancholy emptiness of the wide spaces he passes through. The Lost Heart of Asia is a rare meeting of a marvelous writer and a mysterious land. --Ken Peavler
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Rated by buyers 
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I had been wanting for a while to learn something about Central Asia. It is possibly the only large region of the world that I know nothing about, have never read anything about, never met anyone from, never visited. This book was not a disappointment - a very educational read that has its moments of drama and humour as well. I wish I could say I became a huge fan of Thubron's writing as well as his travelling, but that would not really be the truth.
The area is, of course, very large, and consists of the nations of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirghizstan, and Tajikistan. The differences between the countries was not at all clear to me, altho there were some. For the most part, people in the area are descended from nomadic Turkic (not Turkish) tribes. Coming from a history of wandering tribes and city-states, most of them are not particularly impressed by nationalism. Throughout the book it has clearly been dominated by two major forces: the Soviet Union and Islam. The Russians have dominated the area militarily and thru the introduction of Communism, but their empire has been crumbling for a while, and at least when this book was written, it was not clear what the future of Central Asia would be. There Islam is a lot mellower than places like Iran. Often it is mixed with old pagan practices, and most of the men Thubron encounters seem to have no problem drinking large quantities of alcohol, regardless of what the prophet had to say about it.
Thubron is a brave man. He apparently traveled alone, altho he did hook up with some people along the way, and was armed only with his knowledge of Russian. He visits the major cities, and was not too favorably impressed with them, finding them dominated by Soviet architecture and full of Russians (and some Ukrainians too). He encounters some interesting people along the way. He chats with holy men and regular guys, tries to avoid getting into trouble with authorities and stays away from the mafias (of which there are supposedly many). He meets a group of men who cannot fathom the Western idea of romantic love for just a woman, independent of a love for children and family, especially sons. At one point a couple of men offer to share a steamed sheep's head with him, and they dig the yummy gray brains out with their fingers and munch them up. Much of what he sees is not especially attractive - poverty, dry lands, and desperation. When he goes into the Pamir Mountains and the other mountainous regions that border western China, things get more stimulating. I found myself searching the internet for photos of the places he describes.
This author takes the reader on a very interesting journey, there is no doubt about that. But his writing occasionally grated on my nerves - he has a weakness for the purple phrase and the obscure word. I did hope for some more visual description at times - I could not always get a good mental picture going of the places he discusses. But Thubron knows enough to lighten up from time to time, to let his subjects speak for themselves, and to allow some dry humour into the narrative. Despite a loquaiciousness that sometimes distracts the reader from the journey, I would travel with him again.
Rated by buyers 
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Don't loan this book. You'll never get it back. It's that good. It's that informative. It's that true to life. Reading Colin Thubron's "The Lost Heart of Asia" put me in a part of the world I now want to experience for myself, but probably never will. It helped me understand how history and current events interact on such a diverse region. The Soviets left them with one major gift: A common language.
Rated by buyers -
I've been thinking about Turkestan travel lately, not so much that I plan to do it in person, but more in terms of literature. The whole field of travel literature is such that there are distinct styles among the authors and it's pretty much up to you to select the style that you like. One style that I definitely don't like is the "Yuck" style guaranteed to wrinkle noses, elicit groans, turn stomachs, and produce the reaction "thank God it was her, not me". Authors of this school no doubt garner kudos for having "braved the wilds of X" but it's basically a kind of fraternity/sorority gross-out tour. Still another variety of travel writer finds everyone an idiot, venal, politically incorrect, or somehow unappetizing; definitely not "like us" (which is bad). Everything is awful; if only he'd come here ten years ago---they say it was paradise then, but now, look at all the plastic bottles on the beach. Etc. etc. What about your hometown, buddy ? I'm not exhausting all the possibilities here, but let's turn to two more appealing schools---the Beautiful, Enchanting place group, and the Sad, Wrecked, and Disoriented place group. I could plump for either of these because a) there are some really beautiful places in the world and you can have some great experiences almost anywhere, come to think of it, and b) the world is pretty messed up too, and a lot of places have been wrecked by wars, poverty, and misgovernment, the people have a hard time getting by, and things look pretty grim. I don't require that everything look lovely, but what I do want in a travel book is a writer who doesn't condescend, who doesn't try for laughs at the expense of the people she meets, and who puts in a fair bit of background information on the particular place so that I learn as well as travel vicariously.
Colin Thubron's travel book about the five new/old nations of Central Asia, written in the early 90s, definitely pleases. Speaking a fair amount of Russian, Thubron was able to talk to many people over the several months he spent travelling around. He seems to have had a number of contacts, gleaned in England, but he also met up with various characters along the way. I admired his lyrical descriptions of the land, of places, of ruins, and of conditions, as well as his portrayals of the people he met. His is not a very optimistic view of human nature, nor of the conditions extant in those lands at the time (not that they have vastly improved). The sudden collapse of Russian rule left a vacuum, political, economic, and cultural. Everything turned upside down. Even the most optimistic traveller might have been hard pressed to find upbeat material in the detritus of the Soviet colonial legacy. In none of the five countries does he describe rulers---not even the later-notorious, egomaniacal Saparmurad Niyazov in Turkmenistan. He concentrates solely on the people he meets, who long incessantly for a better material standard of living, who often say that Communism, even Stalin, was better than the present mess. He meets many people who cling to Islam, either in fact, or merely in retrospect, holding onto some dimly-recalled shred of their nearly-erased cultural past. Some of the rather odd characters will touch your soul. Asia had lost its heart long before in the case of these repressed, depressed, and suppressed peoples, condemned to be cotton growers, pollution dumps, or open prisons by successive governments in Moscow. Overall, his is a thoughtful, beautiful book that anyone interested in Central Asia should read.
Rated by buyers -
This was a very well-crafted and informative book, which I would recommend reading to those who haven't yet. For those who have, and who enjoyed it like I did, I would also recommend Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival, which George Kennan's account of his travels around eastern Siberia on dog and reindeer sleds.
Rated by buyers 
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From the get go it is abundantly evident that Colin Thubron is an extremely talented writer. He has a way with words that I have not seen in any other travel writing I read; his book is the very first I have went through that transcended a quaint, shallow, "Let's Go Travel Guide" type of narrative that storms through cities in a few days, marvels at surface elements, then moves on. There is nothing rushed about Thubron's writing style, his descriptions are thought out, in depth, and delicate. This unique distinction I think is vital for anyone doing travel writing in Central Asia: in the minds of Westerners (who will compose the bulk of people reading this kind of writing), Central Asia is a vacuum, both geographically, culturally, and historically. Few Westerners know much about this area, which is a shame, since geographically, culturally, and historically Central Asia is perhaps one of the most evocative places in the world. It is therefore vital for any travel writing to bring Central Asia to life, which Thubron definitely succeeds at.
It is also clear that Thubron is an excellent traveller, so this book is an good read not only to learn about Central Asia, but also to learn about travelling in general. Despite claims of modesty at the beginning of the book, Thubron seems to have a pretty solid command of Russian, which has permitted him to conduct complex conversations with the people he meets along the ways about politics, history, culture, and religion. Morever, Thubron has a unique talent in being able to locate people who are willing to talk to him about these things, which he does often. Finally, Thubron seems to have a near encylopaedic knowledge of the history of the area, indicating quite a load of research before he set off on his travels. Every place he goes, from large cities like Ashgabat and Tashkent, to tiny villages and even long abandoned forts, Thubron is able to provide extensive historical commentary, which goes far in "brining Central Asia to life."
All this is five star material, except for one particular issue I ran into several times reading The Lost Heart of Asia. All throughout the writing, I continuously detected subtle tinges of superiority and prejudice. As I mentioned before, Thubron is a talented and obviously culturally aware author, having travelled to Central Asia in the very first place, so this prejudice is not blatant or blunt, but the subtlety of it all almost makes it worse. For example, Thubron often chats with locals about the history of their cities, cultural heroes, etc. Many times, these locals are historically inaccurate, and Thubron seems to have a smug glee in correcting these inaccuracies, sometimes in the actual conversation, sometimes in the narrative. I see no fault in pointing out historical inaccuracies, but the manner in which Thubron does it ("actually...; but...") harbors a sense superiority. Never does Thubron bother to analyze the unfortunate state of education in the thrid world as an explanation for this, instead, readers are left with the idea that English people just know better. Sometimes, Thubron just seems plain contrarian, like when the caretaker of Tamerlane's tomb pridefully counts Tamerlane as a Turk; Thubron finds it necessary to remind him Tamerlane actually was of Mongol and Tajik (Persian) descent. This bleeds into pettiness: culturally, Tamerlane was from a Turkic environment, and so can legitimately be claimed by Turks as a Turkic icon. I could easily see Thubron criticizing Americans for praising George Washington, since biologically George Washington was of British stock, not "American."
Also bothering me was the role of Islam in Thubron's narrative. Again, he is not blunt about this, but constantly Thubron seems to evoke Islam as the terrible, ghastly force of barbarism that will soon overtake the region, since he visited the area right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Often, as people he interviewed discussed their hopes and worries about their new future, Thubron would often quixotically quip, "What about Islam?" as if it were some bogeyman to check under the bed for. Irritatingly, Thubron also found it necessary to ask almost every "progressive" woman he met their thoughts on the dreaded "veil." I truly can understand fears about fundamentalist Islam and women's rights in Central Asia, but this comes across as a slight Islamophobia because Thubron, who rarely inserts his own actual conversation or opinions in the narrative in the very first place, only seems to talk about Islam as a terrorizing force and the veil as Islam's only feature vis-a-vis women. I would accept his criticism if he bothered to explore other theological aspects of Islam other than the veil, but he doesn't. Actually, near the end of the book he even seems to look back on the Soviet years nostalgically as days of peace and order.
Thubron is a superb writer, with talent that neither I nor many people could hope to ... Read More
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