Most recent book

I recently completed another book, this one about Uzbekistan. I chose this topic for a couple of reasons:

First, Uzbekistan, if not at the heart of the war on terrorism, is certainly in one of its ventricles.

Secondly, I knew so little about Central Asia that I figured I wanted to know something about it.

The book (once again, a travelogue), called "Chasing the Sea" by Tom Bissell, was the reporting of a former Peace Corps Volunteer, who had returned after terminating his service early in the mid 90's. The country is largely a desert flatland, consisting of steppe and even some mountainous regions east of its capital in Tashkent.

Uzbekistan is interesting because while nominally Muslim for more than 1000 years, religion, particularly ardent, practicing religion had not been embraced until very recently, when an insurgent form of Islam began to develop with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

I predict that Central Asia will be a cross roads of sorts in the war on terrorism within the next decade, or so.