18 Books


the domestication of horses, followed by the advent of riding, powered mighty empires: Persian, Mongol, Mughal. For more than two millennia, from Iran and Afghanistan to China, India, and later, Russia, the deep and ancient bond between humans and their horses connected a vast continent, forged trade routes, linked cultures, and fuelled war machines. David Chaffetz tells the story of the steppe raiders, rulers, and traders who amassed power and wealth on horseback from the Bronze Age through the 20th century, drawing on primary sources – in Persian, Turkish, Russian and Chinese.


Qarakhanid Roads to China A History of Sino-Turkic Relations by Dilnoza Duturaeva, Brill, ISBN 9789004508521, £83


Duturaeva’s book takes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating Chinese, Russian, and Western sources to study the Qarakhanid dynasty. Te work’s key themes include representation and knowledge exchange between the Sino-Turkic world, imperial encounters and diplomacy, and trade and cultural transfer. Duturaeva’s work highlights trade and exchange history and is the first comprehensive account of the Silk Road during the Qarakhanid period, challenging theories of its decline after the Tang dynasty. Te book shows the importance of integrating data from Chinese sources as well as archaeological, art-historical and numismatic studies to shed light on this little-studied historical period of Central Asian history, and by extension, the aspects of global medieval trade that the Qarakhanids were part of. Te revised political history of the Qarakhanids can be written only thanks to such works that bridge sources from multiple languages and disciplines. Focusing on the Qarakhanids and using little-accessed Chinese documents, Duturaeva catalogues a surprisingly extensive programme of trade missions.


In Search of Cultural Identities in West and Central Asia


edited by Henry P Colburn, Betty Hensellek, and Judith A Lerner, Brepols, ISBN 9782503604381, Euro 185


How do we reconstruct ancient societies’ cultural and visual identities? Te author has dedicated her scholarly and curatorial career to piecing together the material culture of communities across ancient Western Asia, Iran, and Central Asia. A number of her colleagues – art historians, archaeologists, philologists, and conservators – have contributed essays to this volume to reflect Harper’s range of contributions throughout her six-decade career. Many of the essays focus on ancient metalwork, Harper’s major expertise, while others on glyptics, ivory, or glass, three of her other interests. Te essays aim to make sense of this region’s diverse cultural identities, many of which are the result of cross-cultural exchange. Some authors have employed iconographical or socio-historical approaches; others have complementarily opened new facets of cultural identities through technical and scientific analyses, collection history, and provenance research.


Moving in the Margins: Desert Travel and Power in Medieval Central Asia by Paul D Wordsworth, Brill, ISBN 9789004534872, Euro 135


Central Asia has been perceived as a ASIAN ART | WINTER 2024 |


landscape of connections, of Silk Roads. In reality the region is highly fragmented and difficult to traverse, and overcoming these obstacles led to routes becoming associated with epic travel and high-value trade. Te inhabitants of these lands became experts in the art of navigating the margins. Tis volume seeks to unravel some of the myths surrounding long-distance roads in Central Asia, using a desert case study to put forward a new hypothesis for how medieval landscapes were controlled and manipulated.


Islamic World


Mongols, Tatars, and Turks in the Persianate World Imre Baski, et al, Brill,


ISBN 9789004720664, Euro 119


Celebrating the scholarly legacy of István Vásáry, this volume discusses the interaction of Turkic and Mongol pastoral societies with sedentary Islamic cultures in Iran and Central Asia, as well as the development of the resultant Turko-Persian culture in the medieval and early modern periods. Te essays cover a wide range of topics, such as Mongol and post-Mongol political culture, relations between the Ming dynasty of China and the Timurids of Central Asia and Iran, Central Asian weaponry, the vocabulary of pandemics and drinking culture in Turkic, Turkic ethnonyms, the structure of the aristocracy in the Crimean khanate, Sufi connections between Turkish Anatolia and the Golden Horde, literary multilingualism in Turkic, Persian, and Arabic, Central Asian epics, as well as Iranian scribal practices.


Precious Materials:


The Arts of Metal in the Medieval Iranian World


by Annabelle Collinet et al, Ginko Books, ISBN 9781914983122, £70


Medieval metalwork is one of the artistic highlights of the Iranian world, as well as of the Musée du Louvre in Paris which holds more than 80 objects from this period. Tis is one of the most important collections in the world but until now the objects, some well-known and others quite unknown, have never been studied or published as a single group. An ambitious project for the archaeometallurgical research of these objects known as ‘Islametal’ was established to provide vital new information on the processes, places and craftsmen linked to their production. Te results of this far-reaching investigation, which included material analysis as well as close examination of each object, are at the heart of this volume and allowed the author Annabelle Collinet, with her collaborator David Bourgarit, to suggest new categorisations for many of the objects.


To the City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul by Alexander Christie- Miller, William Collins, ISBN 9780008416041, £25


Caught between two seas and two continents, Istanbul sits between East and West. Plagued by environmental decay, rapacious development, and tightening authoritarianism straining its social fabric to breaking point, it represents the precipitous moment civilisations around the world are currently facing. In and around its crumbling Byzantine-era fortifications, Alexander Christie-Miller meets


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Iran Under the Mongols by Denise Aigle, Bloomsbury, ISBN 9780755645732, $103


What were the effects of Mongol rule in Iran? Tis book focuses on Shiraz and the province of Fars to provide a detailed political, social and economic history of Ilkhanid rule from the first Mongol invasions in 1220 until the end of the Injuid dynasty in 1357. Using a vast collection of sources, Denise


Aigle combines local and global approaches to integrate the history of the province into the whole administrative system. Central is the thesis that Mongol rule caused a break in traditional administrative patterns. A dual administrative system was set up, consisting of both Mongol and local Persian personnel, directed from the court. Charting the fortunes of each successive ruler, her research shows that the failings of individual rulers, as well as intrigue by Persian notables, were the principal reasons for Shiraz and Fars’s economic decline under the Mongols in comparison with the more successful neighbouring province of Kirman.


people who are experiencing the looming crisis and fighting back, sometimes triumphing despite the odds. Te book blends two narratives: the story of Turkey’s tumultuous recent past told through the lives of those who live around the walls, and the story of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II’s siege and capture of the city in 1453. Tat event still looms large in Turkey, as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan invokes its memory as part of his effort to transform the country in an echo of its imperial past.


The Damascus Events:


The 1860 Massacre and the Destruction of the Old Ottoman World by Eugene Rogan, Allen Lane, ISBN 9780241646908, £30


Tis book recreates the lost world of the Middle East under Ottoman rule. Te once-mighty empire was under pressure from global economic change and European imperial expansion. Reforms in the mid-19th century raised tensions across the empire, nowhere more so than in Damascus. A multifarious city linked by caravan trade to Baghdad, the Mediterranean, and Mecca, the chaos of languages, customs, and beliefs made Damascus a warily tolerant place. Until the reforms began to advantage the minority Christian community at the expense of the Muslim majority. But in 1860, people who had generally lived side by side for generations became bitter enemies as news of civil war in Mount Lebanon arrived in the city. Under the threat of a French expeditionary force, the Ottomans dealt with the disaster effectively and ruthlessly – but the old, generally quite tolerant Damascene world lay in ruins. It would take a quarter of a century to restore stability and prosperity to the Syrian capital.


The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East by Barnaby Rogerson, Profile Books, ISBN 9781781257258, £25


At the heart of the Middle East, with its regional conflicts and proxy wars, is a 1,400-year-old schism between Sunni and Shia. To understand this divide and its modern resonances, we need to revisit its origins, which go back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the accidental coup that set aside the claims of his cousin and son-in-law Ali, and the slaughter of Ali’s own son Husayn at Kerbala. Tese events have created a slender faultline in the Middle East. Te book follows these narratives from the first Sunni and Shia caliphates, through the medieval caliphates and empires of the Arabs, Persians and Ottomans, to the contemporary Middle East. It shows how a complex range of identities


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and rivalries – religious, ethnic and national – have shaped the region, jolted by the seismic shift of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Rogerson’s original approach takes the modern chessboard of nation states and looks at each through its particular history of empires and occupiers, minorities and resources, sheikhs and imams.


Sufi Lovers, Safavid Silks and Early Modern Identity


by Nazanin Hedayat Munroe, Amsterdam University Press, ISBN 9789048551149, £107


Tis book examines a group of 16th- and 17th-century figural silks depicting legendary lovers from the Khamsa (Quintet) of epic Persian poetry. Codified by Nizami Ganjavi in the 12th century, the Khamsa gained popularity in the Persian- speaking realm through illustrated manuscripts produced for the elite, creating a template for illustrating climactic scenes in the love stories of ‘Layla and Majnun’ and ‘Khusrau and Shirin’ that appear on early modern silks. Attributed to Safavid Iran, the publication proposes that dress fashioned from these silks represented Sufi ideals based on the characters. Migration of weavers between Safavid and Mughal courts resulted in producing goods for a sophisticated and educated elite, demonstrating shared cultural values and potential reattribution. Trough an examination of primary source materials, literary analysis of the original text, and close iconographical study of figural designs, the study presents original cross-disciplinary arguments about patronage, provenance, and the socio-cultural significance of wearing these silks.


Fiction


Loot by Tania James, Harvill Secker, ISBN 9781787304154, £18.99


Butter


by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton, Fourth Estate, ISBN 9780008511685, £14.99


Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, whom she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. Te case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak


with the press, entertaining no visitors. Tat is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they become closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii, but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something awakens in her body; might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, ‘Te Konkatsu Killer’, Asako Yuzuki’s novel is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance, and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.


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Young toy maker and dreamer Abbas is whisked away to Tipu Sultan’s glorious palace in Mysore and ordered to create a musical tiger to delight Tipu’s sons. When he is apprenticed to the eccentric clockmaker Monsieur Du Leze, Abbas finds an unexpected friend who encourages his skill and hunger for learning. Trough Du Leze, he also meets the unforgettable Jehanne, who has questions and ambitions of her own. But when British soldiers attack and loot Mysore, Abbas’s world is turned upside down and his prized tiger is shipped off to a country estate in England. Now he and Jehane must embark on a quest to Europe to claim their legacy.


The Spoiled Heart


by Sunjeev Sahota, Harvill Secker, ISBN 9781787304079, £18.99


Since his young son died Nayan Olak has not risked love. Instead he has ploughed his grief and energy into his work at the union, trying to create the world he would have wanted for his boy. Now he’s running for the leadership: a huge moment for Nayan, the culmination of everything he believes. As he grows closer to the mysterious Helen Fletcher, and to the possibility that their pasts may have been connected, much more is suddenly threatened than his chances of winning. And when Megha Sharma, a new candidate with new politics, bursts into the picture, the race of a lifetime is on.


Rosarita


by Anita Desai, Picador, ISBN 9781035044436, £12.99


A young student sits on a bench in a park in San Miguel, Mexico. Bonita is away from her home in India to learn Spanish. She is alone, somewhere she has no connection to. It is bliss. And then a woman approaches her. Te woman claims to recognise Bonita because she is the spitting image of her mother, who made the same journey from India to Mexico as a young artist. No, says Bonita, my mother did not paint. She never travelled to Mexico. But this strange woman insists, and so Bonita follows her. Te narrative follows Bonita and her mother will move apart and come together, and where the past threatens to flood the present and will re-write it.


Brotherless Night


by V V Ganeshananathan, Penguin, ISBN 9780241997673, £9.99


Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war tears through her hometown of Jaffna, her dream takes her on a different path as she sees those around her,


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