Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang

XINJIANG, THE VAST NORTHWESTERN REGION comprising one sixth of the PRC today, borders on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia. Since antiquity it has stood at the crossroads between China, India, the Middle East and Russia. Today Xinjiang's historic Silk Road linkages have gone global, while the Belt and Road Initiative and repression of the Uyghurs have drawn the world’s attention to this geographical centre of Eurasia. James A. Millward draws on primary sources and scholarly research in several European and Asian languages to provide the first general account in English of the history of Xinjiang and its peoples from the earliest times to the present. He discusses Xinjiang's world historical role as a commercial entrepôt and cultural conduit by which Buddhism, Christianity and Islam entered China, and the region's interactions with Tibetan, Mongol, Central Asian and Chinese empires. Eurasian Crossroads examines the competing Chinese and Turkic nationalist visions of the region's status in modern times and recurring unrest and rapid development under the PRC. The factors underlying historical change in the region—its natural environment and geography, its location at the overlap of cultural realms and its ethno-linguistic diversity—remain as relevant to Xinjiang’s future as to its past. A new chapter, ‘Colonialism, Assimilationism and Ethnocide’, examines the last two decades, highlighting the CCP’s policies towards the Uyghurs. James A. MILLWARD is Professor of Intersocietal History at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. He also teaches as an invited professor in the Master Oficial en Estudios de Asia Oriental at the University of Granada, Spain. His publications include The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (2013) and Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864 (1998). His articles and op-eds on contemporary China appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Global Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Review of Books and other media.