Description: This book outlines the history of Xinjiang. It focuses on the key city of Kashghar, the symbolic heart of Uighur society, drawing on a large body of records in which ordinary people provided information on the period around the communist takeover. These records provide an exceptionally rich source, showing how ordinary Uighurs lived their everyday lives before the communist takeover, and how their everyday lives were profoundly affected by the communist takeover.
Review Quotes:
"Dillon (formerly, Univ. of Durham, UK), a specialist on contemporary China, provides a detailed history of the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang Province in the first decades of the 20th century, arguing that it was key to Xinjiang's incorporation into the People's Republic of China. Dillon's previous published works on Islam in China and Xinjiang, such as China: A Modern History (CH, Jul'11, 48-6451), naturally culminate in this city history. Readers should be especially intrigued with the many photographs of 1930s Kashgar taken by Swedish missionaries, which provide a nice visual counterpoint to Dillon's appropriately complex narrative describing the swirl of personalities and states involved in the last phase of the "great game" at that far corner of China. China specialists and advanced students will be particularly grateful for Dillon's extensive use of important Chinese primary sources on Xinjiang, and for his attempt to see Kashgar in that turbulent period from several perspectives. All readers will find his description of key personalities helpful. For background and comparison, instructors should review earlier works on the history of the province and on this period, such as Andrew D. W. Forbes's Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia (1986) and James A. Millward's Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (CH, Feb'08, 45-3349)." --M. C. Brose, University of Wyoming
Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above - CHOICE