On Arid Ground

Reviews / Votes

Jennifer Keating's On Arid Ground s a path-breaking study of the way empire and environment interacted in Central Asia through the 19th and early 20th centuries. This book innovates on a number of fronts, not least by showing the importance of ecology and environment in forcing the Russian Empire to adapt its long-term geopolitical strategy. It significantly changes the way we think of Russian Empire-building and outlines a fascinating picture of land reclamation, settlement and commodity development, while often putting to the fore actors beyond the human, from sandstorms to termites. Inspiring and important, it will be influential for historians working on other imperial contexts, and above all for our thinking about environment and human social and political organisation today. * 2023 Gladstone Book Prize Judges' Citation * In this excellent work, Jennifer Keating shows that paying close attention to seemingly little things like sand, saxaul, termites, and apples, in addition to more traditional big topics like cotton and irrigation, is crucial to our understanding of the Russian Empire in Turkestan...Keating's book draws heavily on archives in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Almaty. It also engages deeply with the historiography of Russian Central Asia and places it in the context of new global histories of empire and the environment. This makes it a welcome addition to several fields, and of interest to historians not only of Russia or Central Asia but also of imperialism and the environment. * John B. Seitz, Russian Review * Excellent book * Sarah Cameron, Slavonic and East European Review *