Publication: Writing Travel in Central Asian History

This volume had its origins in the conference, The Roads to Oxiana: The Writing of Travel at the Crossroads of Asia hosted by the UCLA Program on Central Asia in November 2010. The conference was in turn linked to a series of Program on Central Asia seminars and conferences addressing the intersection of mobility and literature.

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For centuries, travelers have made Central Asia known to the wider world through their writings. In this volume, scholars employ these little-known texts in a wide range of Asian and European languages to trace how Central Asia was gradually absorbed into global affairs. The representations of the region brought home to China and Japan, India and Persia, Russia and Great Britain, provide valuable evidence that helps map earlier periods of globalization and cultural interaction.

Nile Green is Professor of South Asian and Islamic history at UCLA. His recent books include Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, winner of the Albert Hourani Award for outstanding publishing in Middle East Studies and Sufism: A Global History.

Program on Central Asia