Publication

This paper analyzes the radical changes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the sociopolitical structures of the Bukharan, Khivan and Khokand polities in Central Asia. It argues that a new breed of centralization and a departure from Chingizid legitimation were common to all three khanates and that these phenomena constituted an embryonic Central Asian experience of modernity before the arrival of colonial rule. The paper begins with an explanation of the author’s understanding of the Chingizid heritage, and then moves on to explore the individual contexts of the three khanates before ending with some general observations and conclusions.