Customer Reviews

Everyday Life in Central Asia: Past and Present

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2 star:		(1)
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Zanca and Sahadeo have done an excellent job of collecting a series of essays that illuminate the everyday life lived by the peoples of Central Asia. The collection begins with an excellent essay on the history of Central Asia that makes a difficult subject understandable. Other essays are grouped about topics such as community, gender, performance and encounters, the nation state and, of course, religion.

Anyone wishing a deeper understanding of this region would be well-advised to read this book.

John G.
Chicago

I am preparing to travel to Central Asia, and have found it hard to find books that deal with life in that area. This book covers a multitude of topics using specific cases to illustrate the generalizations. It was the most helpful piece of info I found.

I appreciate work done by Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca, but I would like to share my opinion about black spot of the book. I had a good impression about the book (while reading it) and thought that my money were not wasted until I reached essay called "Dinner with Akhmed" written by Greta Uebling. She writes that her article "explores pos-Soviet gender ideologies in Tajikistan" based on a series of encounters she had. In my opinion it is a misleading essay. I had an impression that it is a poorly written story by a weak Western tourist (who is in addition an alcoholic), but not an article written by professional anthropologist, historian or sociologist. In my opinion conclusions and analysis she did are very weak and poorly reflect insides of gender relation, culture, tradition in Soviet, post-Sovet, modern Tajikistan. I felt very good and comfortable reading all other essays, but "Dinner with Akhmed" in my opinion was the worst one, written with ingrained in "modern" world arrogance. For example, invitation to visit an unknown family the author sees as an opportunity "to expand her knowledge about the region", which is "final goal" of the author. A "visit" in Central Asian cultures is not the same as a "visit" in the Western culture, it can be with no purpose and special formal order. The author describes how after having many many toasts with the gay whom she barely knows she "understands" his "final purpose". She writes: "Here in the final toast of the evening, is revealed one of Akhmed's underlying goals and overriding subtext of the conversation..." It sounds ironic to me. Those who lived in Central Asia will doubt it. Because, as I wrote above, in Central Asia visit to a family (even in another country), or person whom you drunk with, most often done not for mercenary ends. In general, I felt like I wasted my time reading that "muddy" essay.