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Restless Valley: Revolution, Murder, and Intrigue in the Heart of Central Asia
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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About this ebook
This award-winning foreign correspondent’s vivid account of Central Asia’s recent history “reads like a novel but is the stuff of hard-won journalism” (Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan).
Here are the stories of two revolutions, a massacre of unarmed civilians, a civil war, a drug-smuggling highway, brazen corruption schemes, contract hits, and larger-than-life characters who may be villains, heroes, or possibly both. Restless Valley is a gripping, contemporary chronicle of Central Asia from a veteran journalist with extensive experience in the region.
Both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have struggled with the challenges of post-Soviet, independent statehood, and both became entangled in America’s Afghan campaign when the United States built military bases within their borders. Meanwhile, the region was becoming a key smuggling hub for Afghanistan’s booming heroin trade.
Through the eyes of local participants—the powerful and the powerless—Shishkin reconstructs how Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have ricocheted between extreme repression and democratic strivings; how alliances with the United States and Russia have brought mixed blessings; and how Stalin’s legacy of ethnic gerrymandering continues to incite conflict today.
“The weird, the strange, the corrupt, and the grand are all evident . . . [Shishkin] relentlessly pursues and then tells the stories of the most corrupt and powerful and also the most sincere and admirable characters who inhabit these mountains.” —Ahmed Rashid, The New York Review of Books
Here are the stories of two revolutions, a massacre of unarmed civilians, a civil war, a drug-smuggling highway, brazen corruption schemes, contract hits, and larger-than-life characters who may be villains, heroes, or possibly both. Restless Valley is a gripping, contemporary chronicle of Central Asia from a veteran journalist with extensive experience in the region.
Both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have struggled with the challenges of post-Soviet, independent statehood, and both became entangled in America’s Afghan campaign when the United States built military bases within their borders. Meanwhile, the region was becoming a key smuggling hub for Afghanistan’s booming heroin trade.
Through the eyes of local participants—the powerful and the powerless—Shishkin reconstructs how Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have ricocheted between extreme repression and democratic strivings; how alliances with the United States and Russia have brought mixed blessings; and how Stalin’s legacy of ethnic gerrymandering continues to incite conflict today.
“The weird, the strange, the corrupt, and the grand are all evident . . . [Shishkin] relentlessly pursues and then tells the stories of the most corrupt and powerful and also the most sincere and admirable characters who inhabit these mountains.” —Ahmed Rashid, The New York Review of Books
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Rating: 3.8333333333333335 out of 5 stars
4/5
6 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In “Restless Valley: Revolution, Murder, and Intrigue in the Heart of Central Asia” (2013) Philip Shishkin describes some of the more recent developments, mostly in Kyrgyzstan, and a bit of Uzbekistan. Mr. Shishkin, who is of Russian descent and speaks the language, is an investigative journalist with an adventurous nature, who takes his fact gathering serious. So he went to Andijan immediately after the massacre in 2005, and to the border town of Kara Suu after it declared its independence. And he uses his very extensive network to talk to an enormous amount of people, from all sides of the various issues he discusses. He also presents a great deal of detail – perhaps a little too much, at times – about the way especially the Kyrgyzstan power brokers have operated before and after the various revolutions, and within the framework of American interest in the Manas airbase outside Bishkek: a truly incredible story that at the hands of Mr. Shishkin becomes perfectly credible. A great achievement, especially because despite the detail, and the occasional repetition, the book reads easily, providing a rare insight in the workings of this newly independent republic – probably not much different from many other dubious republics.
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Restless Valley - Philip Shishkin
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