Russian Rule in Samarkand makes use of a comparative method of research the constructions, body of workers, and ideologies of Russian imperialism in Turkestan, taking Samarkand and the encompassing zone as a case-study. The production of a colonial management in relevant Asia awarded Russia with related difficulties to these confronted through the British in India, yet assorted techniques to governance intended that the 2 regimes usually stood in stark distinction to each other. whereas the Russian management used to be characterized by way of corruption and inefficiency, British rule in India was once even more violent, and its matters even more seriously taxed.
Opening with the history to the political state of affairs in crucial Asia and a story of Russian conquest itself, the ebook strikes directly to examine reliable attitudes to Islam and to pre-colonial elites, and the earliest makes an attempt to set up a functioning method of profit assortment. Uncovering the spiritual and ethnic composition of the army paperwork, and the social historical past, schooling and coaching of its body of workers, Alexander Morrison assesses the competence of those officials vis-á-vis their Anglo-Indian opposite numbers. next chapters examine the function of the so-called 'native management' in governing the nation-state and amassing taxes, the try and administer the advanced structures of irrigation prime from the Zarafshan and Syr-Darya rivers, and the character and services of the Islamic judiciary lower than colonial rule.
Based on huge archival examine in Russia, India, and Uzbekistan, and containing infrequent resource fabric translated from the unique Russian, Russian Rule in Samarkand can be of curiosity to all these drawn to the heritage of the Russian Empire and ecu Imperialism extra generally.
