Russian Central Asia 1867-1917

Russian Central Asia, 1867–1917: A Study in Colonial Rule by Richard A. Pierce surveys the half-century between the creation of the Governor-Generalship of Turkestan and the fall of the Romanovs, treating the region as a “laboratory” of late-imperial colonial rule. Pierce maps the terrain—vast steppe, desert basins, and oasis belts—and sketches the peoples (Kazakhs, Kirgiz, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Tadzhiks, and others), their economies (pastoral nomadism and irrigated agriculture), and the climatic and geographic constraints that shaped settlement and politics.

Challenging both Soviet teleology and thin Western treatments, he dissects shifting Soviet historiography (from “double oppression,” to annexation as a “lesser evil,” to a “progressive” good) and argues for an evidence-driven appraisal of imperial administration, law, taxation, education, commerce, and native elites. The book situates conquest and rule within broader 19th-century patterns, showing how Russian policies interacted with oasis state structures, clan systems, and Islamic institutions, and how infrastructure, markets, and governance changed under tsarist rule—laying the pre-1917 foundations necessary to judge later Soviet claims of transformation.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1960.