In the Shadow of Great Powers is the second volume of Christoph Baumer's History of the Caucasus. It covers the period from the Seljuk domination of the Southern Caucasus around 1050 CE to the present day. After the Kingdom of Georgia's golden age of independent power and cultural blossoming in the 12th and early 13th centuries, the Caucasus was overrun by the Mongols and soon disintegrated into innumerable smaller kingdoms, principalities and khanates. At the same time, an Armenian kingdom in exile maintained a precarious independence in Cilicia, today's southern Turkey, by applying a three-way diplomatic policy balanced between the Mongol Il-Khanate, the Crusader states and, to a lesser degree, the Mameluke Empire. Then followed four centuries during which the highly fragmented polities of the North and South Caucasus became political pawns of the regional great powers, above all the Ottomans, Iran and Russia.

In the wake of World War I the South Caucasus enjoyed a short-lived independence whereas its northern neighbours were engulfed by the Russian civil wars. But by 1921 the Soviet Union had re-established Russian dominance over the whole region and, from a Western perspective, the region 'disappeared' behind the Iron Curtain. Nevertheless, the Caucasian nations kept their pronounced identities even under Soviet rule, giving rise at the dissolution of the Soviet Union to a number of internecine conflicts. Whereas the Russian Federation managed to maintain its supremacy over the North Caucasus - albeit at the cost of bloody wars and insurrections - Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia succeeded in more or less gaining control over their destiny. Of these three republics, only Azerbaijan secured a wide-ranging independence thanks to its fossil fuel resources. Following Russian interference, Georgia lost control over two of its provinces while Armenia remains dependent on Russian support in the face of its notoriously antagonistic relations with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey over the unresolved issue of Karabakh. In the Shadow of Great Powers includes some 200 full-colour images and maps which further bring the turbulent history of this region to light.

Magnificent [and] wondrous. The Spectator
Rich and illuminating. Literary Review
Phenomenally accurate. History Today
Stunning. The Morning Star
Sweeping. The New European
A wonderful book. Current World Archaeology
In a class of its own. The Caspian Post

A landscape of high mountains and narrow valleys stretching from the Black to the Caspian Seas, the Caucasus region has been home to human populations for nearly 2 million years. In this richly illustrated 2-volume series, historian and explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of the region's history through to the present day. It is a story of encounters between many different peoples, from Scythians, Turkic and Mongol peoples of the East to Greeks and Romans from the West, from Indo-European tribes from the West as well as the East, and to Arabs and Iranians from the South. It is a story of rival claims by Empires and nations and of how the region has become home to more than 50 languages that can be heard within its borders to this very day.

This first volume charts the period from the emergence of the earliest human populations in the region - the first known human populations outside Africa - to the Seljuk conquests of 1050CE. Along the way the book charts the development of Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age cultures, the first recognizable Caucasian state and the arrival of a succession of the great transnational Empires, from the Greeks, the Romans and the Armenian to competing Christian and Muslim conquerors. The History of the Caucasus: Volume 1 also includes more than 200 full colour images and maps bringing the changing cultures of these lands vividly to life.

This set includes all four volumes of the critically acclaimed History of Central Asia series. The epic plains and arid deserts of Central Asia have witnessed some of the greatest migrations, as well as many of the most transformative developments, in the history of civilization. Christoph Baumer's ambitious four-volume treatment of the region charts the 3000-year drama of Scythians and Sarmatians; Soviets and transcontinental Silk Roads; trade routes and the transmission of ideas across the steppes; and the breathless and brutal conquests of Alexander the Great and Chinghiz Khan. Masterfully interweaving the stories of individuals and peoples, the author's engaging prose is richly augmented throughout by colour photographs taken on his own travels.
This set includes The Age of the Steppe Warriors (Volume 1), The Age of the Silk Roads (Volume 2), The Age of Islam and the Mongols (Volume 3) and The Age of Decline and Revival (Volume 4)

Central Asia is a vast region separating and at the same time connecting the civilizations of the Near East, East Asia and the Indian subcontinent with each other and with the neighboring nomadic cultures. This richly illustrated book reflects the contributions of a conference that took place in Bern in 2020 and includes 32 contributions from 56 authors from 18 countries. The conference evaluated the supra-, inter-, and intraregional modes of cultural exchange and knowledge transfer like trade, migration, missionary activities or military encounters. This exchange occurred within Central Asia, from the outside into Central Asia or conversely out of Central Asia to neighboring cultures. The timeframe considered was from the Early Bronze Age to the period of Amir Timur (end of the 14th century CE) and the geographic scope stretched from the eastern Caucasus in the west till Xinjiang in the east and from southern Siberia in the north till Baluchistan in the south. All papers presented were based upon new archaeological investigations, surveys and discoveries. Most of the contributions suggest that in Central Asia, based on its specific geopolitical location, typical contact cultures blossomed which were influenced to varying degrees by the neighboring cultures and thus produced many facets of cultural hybridisation. The conclusions of many of the excavations presented here will be published in English for the first time. Each article is accompanied by an extensive bibliography and a Russian abstract.

The epic plains and arid deserts of Central Asia have witnessed some of the greatest migrations, as well as many of the most transformative developments, in the history of civilization. Christoph Baumer's ambitious four-volume treatment of the region charts the 3000-year drama of Scythians and Sarmatians; Soviets and transcontinental Silk Roads; trade routes and the transmission of ideas across the steppes; and the breathless and brutal conquests of Alexander the Great and Chinghiz Khan. Masterfully interweaving the stories of individuals and peoples, the author's engaging prose is richly augmented throughout by colour photographs taken on his own travels. For all the complexity of the history, Dr Baumer, a noted authority on Central Asia, never loses sight of the sweeping grandeur of its overall setting. Volume 1 focuses on the geography of the area now occupied by present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, northern Afghanistan, western and central Mongolia and parts of southern Russia and northern China.
Discussing the changing climates of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Ages, the author explores subjects as diverse as glacial retreat; the invention of the wheel; the legendary Cimmerians and Amazons; Hellenism and Zoroastrianism; and the Oxus Treasure. Future volumes will explore the later historical periods of the region.

The Age of the Silk Roads (c 200 BC- c 900 AD) shaped the course of the future. The foundation by the Han dynasty of an extensive network of interlinking trade routes, collectively known as the Silk Road, led to an explosion of cultural and commercial transactions across Central Asia that had a profound impact on civilization. In this second volume of his authoritative history of the region, Christoph Baumer explores the unique flow of goods, peoples and ideas along the dusty tracks and wandering caravan routes that brought European and Mediterranean orbits into contact with Asia. The Silk Roads, the author shows, enabled the spread across the known world of Christianity, Manichaeism, Buddhism and Islam, just as earlier they had caused Roman citizens to crave the exotic silk goods of the mysterious Far East. Tracing the rise and fall of empires, this richly illustrated book charts the ebb and flow of epic history: the bitter rivalry of Rome and Parthia; the lucrative mercantile empire of the Sogdians; the founding of Samarkand; and Chinese defeat at the Battle of Talas (751 AD) by the forces of Islam.

For more than a hundred years, Central Asia was the heartland of the mightiest military power on the planet. But after the fragmentation of the all-conquering Mongol polity, the region began a steep decline which rendered this former domain of horse lords peripheral to world affairs. The process of deterioration reached its nadir in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the former territories and sweeping steppes of the great khans were overrun by Tsarist Russia. In the concluding volume of his acclaimed Central Asia quartet, Christoph Baumer shows how China in the east, and Russia in the northwest, succeeded in throwing off the Mongol yoke to become the masters of their own previous rulers. He suggests that, as traditional transcontinental trade routes declined in importance, it was the Great Game' - or cold war between Imperial Russia and Great Britain - which finally brought Central Asia back into play as a region of strategic importance. This epic history concludes with an assessment of the transition to modern independence of the Central Asian states and their struggle to contain radical Islamism.

Rising from Shanxi Province like a three-dimensional mandala, the soaring peaks of Wutai Shan ('Five-terrace Mountain') have inspired pilgrims and travellers for almost two millennia. A striking terrain of towering emerald forests, wraith-like mists and crenellated ridges, this consecrated and secluded site is said to be the spiritual home of Wenshu Pusa, Bodhisattva of Wisdom. It is one of the most venerable and important Buddhist sanctuaries in China, yet still remains relatively little known in the West. Christoph Baumer has travelled extensively in the Wutai Shan region, and here offers the first comprehensive account of the cradle of Chinese Buddhism. In his remarkable new travelogue, 300 luminous photographs capture the unique spirituality of the 60 monasteries which straddle the complex. Charting festivals, rituals, pilgrimages and the daily life of the monks, abbots and abbesses, 'China's Holy Mountain' is both a splendid introduction to the history of Buddhism in East Asia and an evocative and lavishly-illustrated gazetteer of the monasteries and sacred artefacts themselves.
It will be an indispensable resource for students of Asian religion and philosophy, with further appeal to general readers.

Rock art is the oldest artistic expression of mankind. The first creation of these rock carvings (petroglyphs) and rock paintings (pictographs) by homo-sapiens represented in multiple aspects a real quantum leap in mental performance.

In Rock Art and Its Legacy in Myth and Art explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of these remarkable phenomena of early human imagination, taking in examples from Central Asia and the Caucasus through to Arabia and the Sahara. Baumer examines petroglyphs created on natural rock surfaces or inside prehistoric caves, by engraving, carving or scratching techniques using lithic or metallic tools and explores their meanings through local myths and legends and ceramic artefacts of the time. Vividly illustrated throughout with 300 full colour images, the book celebrates the legacy of these petroglyphs as a means of expression, of communication, of recording events and coded messages as well as an element within rituals for tens of thousands of years down to the present.

For the first time a comprehensive presentation of the development of urban cultures in Central Asia from the Early Bronze Age (around 3000 BC) to the Middle Ages (about 1200 AD) is exemplarily illuminated in this book on the basis of individual research projects. The treated area extends from Turkmenistan to Mongolia and was home to cultures such as the Bronze Age Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), the Sogdian of the Iron Age, the early Parthian or various early medieval ones, namely in the Zhetysu (Seven Stream country) in the southeast of Kazakhstan. The urban civilizations that developed here were closely interrelated, on the one hand, with the cultures of the nomadic ranchers who traversed and inhabited this vast region and, on the other hand, with the more developed neighboring civilizations of the Near East and the Far East. Thus, the region became a diverse exchange zone of cultural and religious influences and also played a major role in the transmission of cultural impulses. The richly illustrated book reflects the contributions of a conference that took place in Bern in 2016 and includes 28 contributions from 50 researchers from 14 countries. The results of many of the excavations presented here will be published in English for the first time. Each article is accompanied by an extensive bibliography and a Russian abstract.