Eurasia is a geopolitical construction of the early twentieth century, often associated with the writings of Halford Mackinder, Owen Lattimore and the Russian Eurasianist school. Very often this landmass between the Ural mountains, the steppes of Central Asia and the Pacific Ocean is filled with images dating back to the Middle Ages, when a cloud of reckless horsemen ravaged a seemingly empty space. Since the times of Genghis Khan until nowadays, the time of rebirth of geopolitics, Eurasia represented and represents a vacant space that admits manifold imaginations. The conquests by Genghis Khan and his successors in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were painted as a "clash of civilizations", i.e. between sedentary and nomadic societies. In the ninteenth century, the high tide of imperialism, Eurasia appeared as a chessboard for the "Great Game" between Tsarist Russia and Great Britain, at least in the twentieth century the Soviet Union and the United States rivalled on this vast space. The book intends to explore the roles of global and regional players on this chessboard. Contributions to Russia's, Middle East's, China's, Mongolia's, Britain's and U.S. role in this part of the world are welcome. The key question is how Eurasia was imagined and constructed geographically, historically, and culturally. Eurasian history is marked by a characteristic structure, i.e. of tribalism, authoritarianism, and geopolitics. On this spot, ethnicity is intermingled with nation-buildung and imperial-buildung. All these factors make the Steppe frontier complex, the book wants to take a look beyond the Steppe frontier on the riparian states how they were involved in steppe politics, but also beneath the nomadic texture of the Steppe frontier itself.

Abstracts of 300-500 words and a short bio should be sent to: EvaMaria.Stolberg@t-online.de