My purpose here is to provide information and images of general interest to those wishing to learn about and/or travel in Central Asia. I also have some specific audiences in mind: teachers and their students, and outdoor adventure enthusiasts. While I am an academic, most of the material has no "scholarly" pretensions. My teaching has required extensive but not exhaustive reading and the effort to translate the complex into accessible terms for those who may know less about the area. Considerable travel in the region has also provided insights and the opportunity for photography. The information should be reasonably well-informed; however, serious scholarship on the area requires another level of expertise and commitment, among other things, knowledge of the local languages.
The territory covered is deliberately broad--my "Central Asia" is really the "Inner Asia" that extends from the Caucasus to Mongolia and at least western China and in the south to northern Pakistan. Such a large region naturally encompasses a huge variation in geography, from some of the driest desert regions on earth to the most forbidding (and beautiful) glacier-shrouded peaks. The sweep of the region's cultural history is encapsulated in part in the history of the "Silk Road," in fact many overland routes connecting east and west, north and south across the great expanses of Eurasia. My interest in all this is that of the professional historian who is also an inquiring observer of contemporary affairs, especially insofar as they connect with the changes brought about by the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. I am also an an eager amateur photographer and an outdoor enthusiast who has led trekking, biking and climbing in the mountains and valleys of the region.
The table of contents on the left will lead you to the materials. Please write me at dwaugh@u.washington.edu with your comments.