Customer Reviews

Azerbaijan (Cultures of the World)

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I am not aware of the content of the book, but I totally agree with A. Ibadov that the guy on the cover can't be an Azeri at all. Nowhere in Azerbaijan do men wear such turbans. It is shame that David King has chosen to depict the cover in such a misrepresentative way.

As being an Azerbaijani, I also claim to the picture which is on the cover of the book. Azeri men dont wear this kind of dress which is called "turban" or whatever.

It shows that how much the author knows about Azerbaijan, its history, people and respectively, their culture and traditions. Standing from this point of view, in addition, i would say that his ideas given in the book more likely dont reflect the reality as the cover picture. It might not be truth (i wish), yet still i highly recommend the picture to be replaced by a picture, in next volumes, that represnts real Azerbaijan, Azerbaijanis and the culture, history and traditions that they possess.

Any book starts with a cover -- and in this case, the cover is completely misleading and thus fails not only its primary objective -- "one picture is worth a thousand words" -- but fails the book completely. The man depicted on the cover is probably either from Pakistan or Afghanistan, but definitely not from Azerbaijan. In fact, it is easier to spot a similar looking and dressed person in large cities in the UK and USA, than in Azerbaijan. It is unfortunate that such unprofessionalism creeps into books for American schoolchildren.

I also didn't read the book, but the mistake on cover explains much. Azerbaijani men don't wear like that..That is totally nonsense. I think he went to somewhere to Arabic countries and thought that he can write a book about Azerbaijan. but nobody can find any male wearing that in Azerbaijan. that is totally nonsense.

Look at the cover of this book!
Turban is a part of Kurdish national dress.
Why Kurdish Man on the cover of book about Azerbaijan?
Very interesting.

To Western people, Azerbaijan is an obscured land. Totally unknown to the majority before independance from the Soviet Union in 1991, even to specialists it stood as little more than an outpost in the Soviet empire, largely Russianized. The reality, however, is much more complicated and much more interesting.
In "Cultures of the World Azerbaijan", author David King leads readers into the most challenging set of nations yet published in the "Cultures of the World" series, the Asiatic states of the former Soviet Union. For Azerbaijan, the greatest challenge concerns scarcity of sources, particularly in English. Few books
have been published on the history or descriptive culture of Azerbaijan, and of those published, most discuss specific topics such as political relations with Russia or the
Nagorno-Karabakh Dispute with Armenia.
The author sets the keynote of the book in the Introduction where he comments "Azerbaijan is a nation where the ancient and the modern often exist side by side"(5). He then proceeds to describe the picturesque geography of Azerbaijan, well supplemented by vivid photos. History comes next and now the task of writing becomes very difficult. In the millions of books listed in bookstore Internet catalogues, not a single volume (at least not in English) exists on Caucasian Albania, the distant predecessor state of Azerbaijan which (as best as is
known) is unrelated to Albania in the Balkans. Similarly early modern history of Azerbaijan as part of the Russian Empire remains virtually unknown, despite the oil boom of the late nineteenth century making Azerbaijan the world's largest producer and refiner of oil in 1900. While the author can do little more than identify these points, he does draw attention to incredible gaps in the historical record.
King continues through chapters ranging from economy to arts to food drawing attention to ancient and modern aspects of Azerbaijani society and culture unfamiliar to the outside world. Two chapters highlight this approach. In Arts the author discusses development of literature and music. One example is "mugam" which started with ashrugs (medieval travelling storytellers) recounting their tales, often while strumming a "kobuz (traditional stringed instruments). This evolved into the modern form of mugam as a performing trio with a singer and two other musicians playing other traditional instruments(94-95). This has been further adapted in more recent times by fusion with jazz to become improvised mugam jazz(96).
Lifestyles forms the other highlight chapter. There the author describes stark contrasts between urban and rural life ranging from urbane workers of Baku to hardy, legendary long-life mountain farmers of the Caucasus. Of note in discussion of
long-life legends, the author indicates that while subjects to exaggeration and some fraud, all very old age claims cannot be lightly dismissed(69).
A further note should be added about the use of photos. As usual with this series, they are well-chosen and of high quality. In this volume, however, they raise further questions. In Geography chapter, one photo shows a tall ship at anchor(10)(presumably on the Caspian Sea) very similar to Western ones that sailed the oceans of the world about 150 years ago. Is this ship Russian-built and if not how did it get into the Caspian Sea which has no water connection to the oceans? A second case occurs in Lifestyle chapter showing a schoolboy writing on a blackboard with a teacher watching(71). The schoolroom, however appears to be inside a tent with both student and teacher dressed in heavy winter clothes which opens the question education in Azerbaijan with its difficulties, achievements, and challenges. More specific photo captions would be helpful.
The book series "Cultures of the World" is officially written for middle school and secondary school students to provide motivation for understanding and respecting diversity of cultures. Azerbaijan accomplishes these goals admirably by opening a perspective on a little-known part of the world. It achieves however much more for it places middle school student and Western scholar almost on the same starting line. By identifying major gaps in the historical record, particularly in the early modern oil-boom period, it opens the door to a kind of
"industrial prehistory", a topic which seems to have received little if any attention previously.The reasons for this absence of research could form the basis for a scholarly article in a learned journal. Consequently the book invites research to begin regardless of the level of the researcher. It can be highly recommended to anyone interested in history and culture as well as the motivations behind the presence or absence of each of them.

I wonder if it's the author's complete ignorance on the subject or intention to misrepresent the country made him place this totally irrelevant picture on the cover. Men in Azerbaijan don't wear turbans.