Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise - Softcover

Olcott, Martha Brill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0870032437 ISBN 13: 9780870032431

Publisher: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010

Synopsis

At the outset of independence 18 years ago, Kazakhstan's leaders promised that the country's rich natural resources, with oil and gas reserves among the largest in the world, would soon bring economic prosperity. It appeared that democracy was beginning to take hold in this newly independent state. Nearly two decades later, Kazakhstan has achieved the World Bank's ranking of a "middle economic country," but its economy is straining from the global economic crisis. The country's political system still needs fundamental reform before Kazakhstan can be considered a democracy. Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise examines the development of this ethnically diverse and strategically vital nation, which seeks to play an influential role on the international stage. Praise for the previous edition of Kazakhstan:

"This detailed but accessible work will be the definitive work on the newly independent state of Kazakhstan."— Choice

"[Olcott]... knows more about Kazakhstan than anyone else in the West."— New York Review of Books

"Not only shares the lucid insights and depth of a seasoned observer, it greatly enriches the literature on post-Soviet transitions." —Foreign Affairs

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This complete history of one of the largest non-Slavic ethnic groups charts it from its emergence in the mid-fifteenth century to the present. Martha Brill Olcott details the major events that have shaped the character of the Islamic nation of Kazakhstan, discussing the rise and fall of the Kazakh khanate, the Kazakhs in imperial Russia, revolutionary and Soviet Kazakhstan, and the struggle for autonomy under Soviet rule. Up-to-date material continues the Kazakhs' story from the dismissal of Dinmukhamed Akhmedovich Kunaev, chairman of the Council of Ministers (December 1986) to independence (December 1991) to the present. Outlining changes in Kazakh historiography since the fall of the Soviet Union, this volume identifies areas of contention and ways in which new groups of scholars, using new sources, are approaching them.

About the Author:

Martha Brill Olcott is a senior associate with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Olcott specializes in the problems of transitions in Central Asia and the Caucasus as well as the security challenges in the Caspian region more generallly. She is the author of Central Asia's Second Chance (Carnegie, 2005).

About this edition

• Publisher: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0870032437
• ISBN 13: 9780870032431
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 322