Book Review: Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane

For most other Asians, Central Asia – the ‘Stans – conjure up a blurred image of steppes and deserts, harsh climates, oppressive, autocratic post-Soviet regimes, quarreling ethnic groups and Muslim fundamentalists. This imprecise region, which extends roughly from northeast Iran and the Caspian sea to the eastern border of Xinjiang, from the Hindu Kush …