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73 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Central Asia is a crossroads for ______________ and a frontier for ________________.
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nomadic cultures; agricultural societies
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A Mythic region. _________ have played an important role in
West’s imagination since 1700s |
mountains
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Uplift fold mountains (mostly the __________) from world’s
greatest & ongoing tectonic collision. Stable convergent plate boundary |
Himalayas
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Complex series of mountain barriers and remote
agricultural basins promotes sense of ____________ (e.g. The Man Who Would be King) & _______________ (e.g. Lost Horizon) |
remote kingdoms; “lost,” thus mythic,
spaces |
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Desert region to north extends from _____________ to
_____________. |
European Russia to Northern China
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_______________ since last ice retreat has made area less
attractive to human settlement |
Desertification
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Ideal land route across ____________ for silk trade from Roman Empire to European expansions
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inner Eurasia
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Historically believed that region’s harsh environment produced ________________________
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rugged and aggressive nomadic cultures
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Nomadic agriculture simply a logical response to ______________ and __________
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low rainfall and spread-out food resources
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3 major environmental issues in central asia
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desertification (since end of ice age), salinization of soil, dessication of lakes
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the world's only environmental disaster visible from space
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dessication of the aral sea
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what's to blame for the aral sea dessication?
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soviet diversion of the amu darya river to irrigate cotton
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how much money was stolen in the uzbek "cotton swindle"?
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$6.8 billion
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TFRs influenced by Soviets (except Afghanistan) so they are ____ for Muslim countries
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low
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______ retains a lethally high TFR at 5.6- down from 6.8- but no evidence that modernization is occurring
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Afghanistan
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____________'s TFR declines from 2.7 to 2.0, now ___
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Mongolia, 2.2
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One of the world's least densely populated regions, but much of it _____________
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unsuited to human life
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__________, often abandoned to desert, dot the old silk route
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ancient cities
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the populations are densest in ____________, near region's periphery
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river valleys
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along the edge of the ________________ has streams from snow melt, allowing irrigated agriculture, thus human settlement
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tarim basin
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tarim basin has ________________
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an uninhabitable desert core
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describe the migration pattern in central asia
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chinese in, russians out
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all historic turkestan suited to ____________
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cotton
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western turkestan is modern states of ________ and ___________, both drawn on map by stalin but on czarist base
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uzbekistan and turkmenistan
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eastern turkestan is now __________________
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china's Xinjiang autonomous region
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__________ migrated into xinjiang to grow cotton
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ethnic chinese
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________ is the fastest growing region for cotton agriculture in the world
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xinjiang
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recently, stalinist 'stan nations have begun _______________
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de-russification
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there are substantial refugee flows, especially out of _________________
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afghanistan
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xinjiang has gone from no cotton to _____% of china's output in the past decade
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30%
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______ is now world's main cotton grower
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china
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the mongol empire (1200s) was unsustainable because of __________________________, but in its time the world’s greatest contiguous empire
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internal political conflicts in such a huge
region |
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Nomadic peoples occasionally united under a strong leader, reached out to conquer rich surrounding _____________ (especially east to China)
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agricultural regions
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India tended to be protected from mongol empire by _____________
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Himalayan barrier
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Less pressure of nomads to conquer __________
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europe
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_______________ made europe difficult to conquer (impossible after 802 AD)
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complex european states system
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Diffusion of ________________ into European Russia pushed Mongols back into steppe grassland from 1200s on
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horse/plow agriculture
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4 reasons why mongols were conquered
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(a) Europeans expanded around Eurasia by sea to cut silk route (1500 on).
(b) European states developed highly disciplined militaries (1600 on). (c) Europeans switched to firearms (1600 on). (d) Railroads connected Central Asian frontiers to regions of agricultural. and industrial production around Moscow (after 1860) |
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highly complex _________ geography
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linguistic
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no correspondence between ___________ and ________ boundaries
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linguistic and national boundaries
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__________ speakers of Afghanistan good e.g-- no “Pashtunistan” & as many Pashtuns in Pakistan as Afghanistan
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Pashtun
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afghanistan was never colonized, often "_____________"
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occupied
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afghanistan is one of the world's most _____________ countries
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ethnically complex
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afghanistan has no ________________ (though this is common to islam)
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nation-state ideal
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___________’s claims to control afghanistan rigorously
opposed by other ethnic groups |
Pashtun
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Suspicion that Taliban’s Islamic extremism was more __________ than Islam
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Pashtun
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afghanistan is home to 2 _______ armies' and 1 ______ armies' graveyards
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2 british and 1 soviet
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Since collapse of Mongols and nomadic cultures in face of more efficient agricultural societies, region has been pinched between expansive powers of _________, _______, and __________
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China, Russia, and Britain (in India)
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British power peaked 1904 w/control of
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Tibet
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______________ and ____________ allowed Russia to move in to control most of region 1919-80
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British withdrawal from India and a weak China
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_____________________, plus _______________ has made China strong (has taken back Tibet & pushing hard into Xinjiang). Several smaller states seeking to move into current Russian vacuum in west (Iran, Pakistan, Turkey)
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Recent collapse of USSR after their Afghan War, plus internal economic reform
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Several smaller states seeking to move into current Russian vacuum in west (_______, _____, ________)
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Iran, Pakistan, Turkey
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British learned (the hard way) to control through ______
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client states
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USSR controlled through “independent” allied ________________ (MPR 1919) or, later, thru nominally independent republics
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Communist states
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China controls through _______________ and ________________ (esp. in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang)
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direct rule of nominally “autonomous regions” and settlement of Han Chinese
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Region may have reserves of ______ and ________ second only to SW Asia/N Africa. If reserves are proven will become a vital focal point for global politics
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oil and natural gas
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Principal problem is _______________ as well as shipping oil & gas out by pipelines passing thru regions that exact _____________________ (i.e. how many hundred $ a barrel are you willing to pay?)
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access to sea; high transfer or protection costs
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Drugs are lightweight, have __________ (as was silk)
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high value
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By 1999 Afghanistan was world’s main ___________ growing region (CIA)
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opium poppy
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Taliban financed itself thru __________
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drug trade
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main turkmenistan income from ________
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cotton
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turkmenistan, azerbaijan, and kazakhstan also profit from ______ and _______
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oil and natural gas
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____ and ____ not worth much
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cotton (uzbekistan) and sheep (mongolia)
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uzbekistan has only had a ______________ in GNI per capita
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small increase
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Income from opiates unknowable but creamed off
by ____________ and ______________ |
kleptocratic gvts. and local warlords
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Most legal trade with _________
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Russia
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Cotton crucial to ___________ and _________
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Uzbekistan and Turkemenistan
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No direct access to _______
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sea
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Excessive dependency on ______ not good
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opium
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Oil and natural gas won’t help. Most regimes are _______________
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kleptocracies
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Impact of ________________ on Afghanistan devastating tho US occupation has caused mild improvements for women who now live 51 years to men at 48 (CIA 2011 data)
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Taliban
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Soviet style problems with life expectancies for ______
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males
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In rest of Central Asia more relaxed attitude to women (even in Islamic countries), plus long run impact of Soviet drive for equality shows up in relative equality in _____________ and ______ (note impact of Taliban in Afghanistan again, however)
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work force and literacy
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