'Eden provides readers with a fascinating study of the slave trade in Central Asia, challenging the view that imperial Russia brought that pre-Islamic tradition to an end ... Readers will be especially interested in the material drawn from such rare sources as transcripts of interviews with former slaves compiled by Russian border officials, legal documents, and eyewitness travel reports. One such source is the firsthand account of the Iranian Mirza Mahmud Taqi Ashtiyani, who spent ten years as a slave among Turkmen tribes. This account provides a rare treat for readers - a slave's own perspective. The book ends by describing a little-known slave rebellion in Central Asia in 1873 that nicely underscores Eden's arguments about local slave agency ... This book fills a large gap in the history of Central Asia and global slavery. Highly Recommended.' Choice
'Undoubtedly, Jeff Eden's monograph is a ground-breaking piece of scrupulous and very timely research ... The pivotal merit of the research is the personal accounts of slaves, providing the reader with first-hand information on their intimate experiences in surviving and even making careers of their own within the ruthless reality of ultimate unfreedom. This is also complemented by the breathtaking stories of the Russian military's interaction with native informants and agents ... [A] brilliant study, which eloquently presents very convincing evidence ... [G]ranting the right to speak for themselves to those who have always been left voiceless in the historiography on the region.' Denis V. Volkov, The English Historical Review
'This book represents an exceptionally well-researched and convincingly-argued study ... [A] major contribution to scholarship on Central Asian history, Islamic history, Russian imperial history, and, more generally, the history of slavery.' Scott C. Levi, Journal of Islamic Studies
'Eden manages to depict a 'history from below' that maintains slaves at the forefront of their story. Here, by showcasing slaves' agency and social mobility, albeit limited and subject to chance, Eden demonstrates that slaves were essential to the Central Asian social fabric and that they achieved their own emancipation ... Eden's monograph successfully fills the gap in the Central Asian and global histories of slavery and the broader Eurasian history.' Merjen Atayeva, Iranian Studies
'Unfree labor powered pastoral economies and agricultural societies in eighteenth - and nineteenth-century Central Asia. Historians have noted the presence of slaves in the region, but until now we have lacked a dedicated study on the trade's scale and importance. In Slavery and Empire in Central Asia, Jeff Eden reveals that likely hundreds of thousands, primarily Iranian slaves, labored in Central Asia's fields, homes, and workshops ... [E]xcellent and novel insights into how slavery worked in Central Asia ... Slave agency is dealt with in an effective and nuanced manner ... The book is a welcome addition to the still-meager historiography on Central Asia. It fills many gaps on the extent and working of slavery in the region.' Jeff Sahadeo, American Historical Review
'Most historians are not aware that tens of thousands of Persians were enslaved in the nineteenth century by Turkic-speaking Muslims in Central Asia. Jeff Eden brilliantly examines this slave trade using sources in Russian, Persian and many other languages. Economic networks that have not previously been studied are revealed in this highly original study of the slave trade. The book is an altogether bravura performance.' Roy Mottahedeh, Harvard University
'Jeff Eden's path breaking book offers a brilliant refutation of the self-proclaimed abolitionist intentions behind the Russian expansionist drive into the enslaving principalities of Muslim Central Asia. Drawing on a wide range of hitherto untapped sources, this work provides fascinating insights into the lives of agricultural and other slaves and convincingly shows how their agency - demonstrated in the Khiva revolt of 1873 - brought enslavement in to an end.' Ehud R. Toledano, Tel Aviv University
'Slavery and Empire in Central Asia dispels a multitude of myths and stereotypes about slavery in Central Asia, partly through the meticulous reading of Russian archives, partly through Jeff Eden's innovative use of documents and narratives in Persian and Chaghatai. He shows that almost everything we thought we knew about Central Asian slavery is untrue ... Through the study of slavery Eden is also able to explore trade, social norms and hierarchies and the relations between nomadic and sedentary populations in a crucial period of Central Asia's under-studied history.' Alexander Morrison, University of Oxford
