Article

The Ferghana Valley at the crossroads of world history: the rise of Khoqand, 1709–1822

Scott C. Levi^a1

^a1 Department of History, 101 Gottschalk Hall, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA E-mail: scott.levi@louisville.edu

Abstract

The Khanate of Khoqand emerged, flourished and collapsed during the era of Chinese and Russian imperial expansion into Central Asia. While eighteenth-century Central Asia has long been considered to have been an unimportant backwater ‘on the margins of world history’, this essay juxtaposes focused research in local primary sources with a world historical perspective in an effort to illuminate some of the ways in which the region remained interactively engaged with its neighbours and, through them, with historical processes unfolding across the globe. The essay argues that these interactions were substantial, and that they contributed to Khoqand’s emergence as a significant regional power and centre of Islamic cultural activity in pre-colonial Central Asia.

Footnotes

Scott C. Levi is Assistant Professor of Central Asian and Islamic World History at the University of Louisville.

The author is indebted to William Clarence-Smith of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Roger Beck of Eastern Illinois University, Karen Spierling of the University of Louisville, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful critiques of this article and suggestions for its improvement. Justin McCarthy of the University of Louisville generously took valuable time from a sabbatical to prepare the accompanying map. This research was assisted by an award from the Eurasia Program of the Social Science Research Council with funds provided by the State Department under the Program for Research and Training on Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (Title VIII).