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Colin Thubron

The Lost Heart of Asia Paperback – September 1, 1995

by Colin Thubron (Author)

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A land of enormous proportions, countless secrets, and incredible history, Central Asia--the heart of the great Mongol empire of Tamerlane, site of the legendary Silk Route and scene of Stalin's cruelest deportations--is a remote and fascinating region. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of newly independent republics, Central Asia--containing the magical cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, and terrain as diverse as the Kazakh steppes, the Karakum desert, and the Pamir mountains--has been in a constant state of transition. The Lost Heart of Asia takes readers into the very heart of this little visited, yet increasingly important region, delivering a rare and moving portrayal of a world in the midst of change.

Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harper Perennial
Publication date

September 1, 1995
Dimensions

5.31 x 0.86 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

9780060926564
ISBN-13

978-0060926564
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

West of China, south of Russia, hemmed in by mountains, steppe, and desert, lie the five Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Cut loose from Moscow in the early '90s, the five "Stans" (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan) discover that their newly found freedom plays tug-o-war with despair and a nostalgia for the certainties of the Soviet past. It's during this time that author Colin Thubron travels the width of central Asia, asking questions about the past, present, and future. Not content to simply bounce from place to place, Thubron travels from person to person, uncovering their many vibrant stories and developing a deep understanding of the area's lesser-known history. Kyrgyz and Uzbeks debate the place of Islam. Koreans and Germans, descendants from forced migrants, wonder if they know enough of their ethnic tongue to return to their homelands. Russians find themselves left behind, disbelieving, as the tide of Russian power recedes toward Moscow.

Central Asia was mostly off limits to foreigners during the Soviet years, and while officials are still uncertain about how to deal with a backpack-wearing solo traveler, the locals Thubron meets are not. Thubron finds the heart of Asia in the hearts of its people, swimming in a sea of tea, vodka, and hospitality. From the oldest-known Quran to a deserted Soviet naval base on the shores of a high mountain lake 1,500 miles from the ocean (used to test torpedoes far from spying eyes), Thubron's writing echoes the melancholy emptiness of the wide spaces he passes through. The Lost Heart of Asia is a rare meeting of a marvelous writer and a mysterious land. --Ken Peavler

Review

"Interweaving the history of the area with conversations he has along the way, Mr. Thubron gives a strong overall impression of the ... pervasive unfocused homesickness of the new republics ... [and] tracks down key leftovers from Central Asia's colorful past." -- New York Times Book Review

"One of the most masterful and compelling travel books I have read in along time. Thubron ... is at once astonishingly learned and astonishingly soulful, keenly attuned to the glories and the contradictions, the dreams and the despairs of past and present." -- San Francisco Examiner

"Reading Thubron is the next best thing to being there.... His description is as rich with color and detail as the ochre, carnelian and peacock carpets in the mosques. He makes history burn with life." -- Newsday

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0060926562
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial (September 1, 1995)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780060926564
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060926564
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.86 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,702,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,599 in General Middle East Travel Guides
- #4,114 in General Asia Travel Books
- #18,365 in Travelogues & Travel Essays

Customer Reviews:
107 ratings

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5 star		56%
4 star		28%
3 star		10%
2 star		5%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Carol Miller

An Ingenuous Heart

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2014

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Enchanted by this author's trip along what he insists on describing as "The Silk Road" (a misnomer coined in the nineteenth century by German geographer Ferdinand von Richtofen, two thousand years after the trampling of the various northern Asian trade routes, this in turn a fact established long before silk was included among the panorama of merchandise), I was eager to continue with him in Central Asia. To my dismay I discovered a pitiable travel journal, superficial at best, often erroneous, unbearably naïve, written just after the Independence of what had been carved out of prior empires and khanates to constitute the five Inner Asian provinces of first Tsarist and then Soviet Russia. These wild and storm tossed lands had always been governed by a succession of tribes who ultimately found themselves caught up in the century of the Great Game, the sparring of Russia and Britain for control of the access routes into India. The subsequent disappointment, following the fall of the Soviet Unión, was magnified by climate change, the shifting of the desert sands, rivers moving in their course, government ineptitude, inflation and mismanagement, along with a crisis of both political and religious faith, neither of which had ever been clearly defined. And so progresses the book, to the same degree not really very clearly defined. It never takes shape, its convictions are vague and its judgements are vapid at best.

32 people found this helpful

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Ronnie Bosch

Elegiac

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2016

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Thubron's travels in the heart of Central Asia are for the most part a dour affair. He has a brilliant way with words and pen portraits of various informants spring to life with a mere description of an eyebrow and moustache. Few travellers would invite then sustain situations and people he encounters and seems to thrive on. They are fodder for his wry and frequently sardonic humour and his icy distance from them is maintained throughout. His architectural descriptions are the most elevating, despite the ruined state of many of the iconic buildings and suspect renovations to others. Conceding these gifts he frequently deploys excess adjectives which frustrated my reading at times. But such hindrances were trifling in the general flow.

8 people found this helpful

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Karl Sander

A portrait of a unique area at a unique time

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2015

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What I enjoyed about this was not JUST the unique subject - how many travelogues of central Asia have you come across? - and not just the author's skill in painting a picture with words, but the time in history he was able to capture when the ending of the cold war was still fresh, the Soviet Union only recently buried, and the people most affected by it still trying to decide what it meant for them, and what their future held. In this I found not only Mr. Thubron's skill in painting vivid landscape without actually using a picture (with which I'm becoming familiar), but a rich look into both ancient and recent history that hasn't seemed to be as thoroughly addressed in the West.

9 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Interesting but already out of date

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2018

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An interesting albeit a bit overwritten and flowerlike view of central asía. I traveled through this region eight years later and it had already changed a great deal. Interesting to compare my experience and what he found in the early 90.s

8 people found this helpful

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mojo

Real central asia

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2015

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an intersting book for any history buff or any interest in adventure travel especially concerning the historical places along the silk road. The characters the author meets gives one quite in insight on the way of life in an area and how the environment shapes the type of person and character that develops due to those circumstances. The dangereous situations that the author was experiencing would shake anyone but he seems handle each one with the equanimity and calm of a seasoned adventurer.Well worth the read especially if you are curious about the state of these historical places at that time period.

6 people found this helpful

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Richard Kurtz

Thurbon does it again!!

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2001

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I ordered this book after having been blown away by his later book --the third book in his Soviet Union trilogy --IN SIBERIA, which I thought was absolutely amazing and incredibly involving and one of the best travel essays I ahve ever encountered--this book was good, but not quite up to my expectations which may have been too high based on the earlier read--in any event Thurbon is truly my hero, my soul -mate and I admit I have lived vicariously through these two books -- he is, if half of his adventures are true, an amazingly persistent and daring traveler. He has obviously done extensive research in anticipation of his travels to these remote and apparently soemwhat dangerous spots and I look forward to spending more time this Summer sharing more of his adventures --though many iof his earlier books are, unfortunately, currently out-of-print.

20 people found this helpful

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Judy McElderry

resplendent with both the good and murderous qualities they displayed

Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2016

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Colin Thubron has the ability to put the reader into the atmospherics of foreign lands. He fills his books with sounds and temperatures of other worlds and paints the histories of these lands so we can understand some of the mechanisms of the past which seem to drive the present in today's Middle East and Far East, along with descriptive commentary on the characters he meets along the way. He clarifies what the news refuses to provide us, and opens us up to the ancient movers of history abroad, resplendent with both the good and murderous qualities they displayed. Wonderful reads.

3 people found this helpful

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KJ

gret read

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2014

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A great read somewhat dated now but it gives a great window to the Central Asian psyche following the fall of the Soviet Union. Thubron as always gives great account an detail of his travels.he also portrays an excellent sense of melancholy among the Central Asian people who he seems to regard as Tribesmen who were shepherded into countries that they did not know existed. Overall an enjoyable book of travels written by the best travel writer in the world.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Ms Katalin M Svehla

The writing is good, but my goodness if the was your only ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2014

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I have read several of Colin Thubron's books now, and he has quite the most relentlessly negative view about everyone and everything he encounters. The people he meets are presented either as miserable and hopeless; if they don't actually say this they are made out to be deluded fantasists. If a building is old and ruined this represents decay and neglect, if it is new or restored this is a symbol of soulless stamping out of 'true' national identity. I travelled in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan recently myself, and came away with a very different impression of places and people. The writing is good, but my goodness if the was your only source of information you would not be inclined to go near any of the places he writes about.

13 people found this helpful

Knowledge thru Books.

Another wonderful daydream.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2021

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When I read Colin Thubrons booktrhs I am taken to where ever he is. I am always in a daydream as this intrepid traveller wends his way thru exotic , toxic and immense lands that I shall never visit. It's a great book.

Lindsay Rollo

Gloom and Doom

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2015

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The writer seems determined to cast a melancholy pall over the whole experience. Of course, after such cataclysmic changes in their country, people are going to be nervous and unsure of the future. However, his choice of adjectives such as "dead", "bleached" to describe the brick walls and monuments of Khiva and Bukhara must surely have been a deliberate device to extend the gloom. After my own recent visit, I feel he could just as easily (and more truthfully) have selected "warm", "glowing", "vibrant". Or was it always cloudy when he was there?

5 people found this helpful

D. Lohan

Interesting insight into the time.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2020

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Interesting insight into the time and place in Central Asian. In some cases, the authors views are a little out of line with modern norms, but that to be expected of a book that's 30 years old. While interesting, not the gripping read I hoped for.

the critic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 2, 2018

Verified Purchase

An excellent read, and the service was excellent.

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