SOURCE: Peters, Bill. Review of The Lost Heart of Asia, by Colin Thubron. Asian Affairs 26, no. 3 (October 1995): 323-24.

In the following review, Peters examines Thubron's exploration of the role of Islam in Central Asia in The Lost Heart of Asia.

This reisebeschreibung [The Lost Heart of Asia] is a worthy addition to Colin Thubron's already substantial and distinguished corpus on his expeditions in Asia. His journey began with a flight across the Caspian and the Karakum to Ashkhabad, and ended near Torugart in the east of Kyrgystan beyond Lake Issyk Kul on the western border of Xinjiang. It was made during the first spring and summer after the dissolution of the USSR, in the early months of the “independence” of the six Central Asian Republics. It provides glimpses, therefore, of that part of the world where the “new order” may be expected to bring the greatest changes, where...