From the Silk Road to the Great Game, Central Asia has long been a region of great strategic, political, and economic importance. Currently the home of large oil reserves, Islamic terrorists, and new democracies, Central Asia is of growing visibility to Americans. In this atlas, Rafis Abazov provides 50 two-color maps, each accompanied by a facing page of explanatory text, that graphically illuminate the region's history tracing back to the 8th-7th centuries B.C. From the spread of Islam to the invasion of the Mongols, the area has been at the crossroads of some of the world's most important developments, all succinctly explained in this book. Students will regard it as a useful reference, and general readers will value it for its clarity and wealth of information.