History of civilizations of Central Asia pdf download

History of civilizations of Central Asia

The dawn of civilization: earliest times to 700 b.c. – Editors: A. H. Dani V. M. Masson

HISTORY OF CIVILIZATIONS OF CENTRAL ASIA

. Archaeology in the twentieth century has once again pushed back the frontiers of our knowledge of world prehistory and brought to light numerous centres of ancient cultures and civilizations hitherto unknown.

The new ideas and methods to which it has given rise have also made their contribution to a theory of world history viewed as a complex pattern linking the general with the particular.

 Broad similarities are reflecting global tendencies or being studied against the background of considerable regio­nal diversities, while studies of particular regions and peoples are adding to the common store of world culture.

The need to synthesize the results obtained from the study of particular regions, macro-regions, with their comparative typological features is widely recognized and one outstanding example of this type of work is the General History of Africa published by Unesco.

The present publication is devoted to another macro-region of the Old World – namely, Central Asia. Situated in the very heart of the continent, this region has played a major role in the cultural-historical processes of various epochs.

The role and importance of the various peoples of Central Asia are often inadequately represented in university courses, to say nothing of school text­books.

The present work is aimed at filling this gap.

As a rule, the chapters devoted to the ancient history and cultures of the particular countries belonging to the region have been written by scholars work­ing in these countries.

 The editors have tried to take into consideration the con­tributions of different authors and present the material in a way that reflects the results of individual scholarship in an international spirit.

To elucidate the his­tory of the peoples in this area more completely, the authors of some chapters use