Restless Valley: Revolution, Murder, and Intrigue in the Heart of Central Asia Paperback – June 24, 2014

If it was not for Philip Shishkin's language skills and cultural background, Restless Valley perhaps would not be as genuine and forthright, informative and multifaceted.As other reviewers noted, there are limited publications covering Central Asia. So when I learned about the upcoming release of Restless Valley, I signed up to get a copy as soon as it was available on Amazon. While I had not known Philip Shishkin personally prior to reading this book, reading Restless Valley felt as if Philip was an old friend telling anecdotes and stories about people that we know in common.Covering political intrigues, corrupt schemes at the top level, and revolutions mostly in Kyrgyzstan, the author does take the reader on a political travelogue to Uzbekistan, as well as to neighboring Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and briefly to Kazakhstan. He invites the reader to join his private conversations with top government officials and human rights activists, with law enforcement officials and outlaws, with journalists and ordinary people. The transitions from one chapter to another in the book are smooth, usually through an intriguing story that connects at-first-sight irrelevant stories to each other.When it comes to ethnic conflicts, it's hard to be both truthful and unbiased. Philip Shishkin does manage that fine line in his analysis of the ethnic conflict between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. In every chapter, he gives two sides of the story leaving the reader with food for thought.I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Central Asia.

Interesting, thought provoking and the KZ human rights gentleman prisoned for the murder of a KZ policeman is right now ( 24/ 01/2017) having his case retired and a verdict is expected on 27/01/2017. Just to have this case reviewed is absolutely amazing!

I began reading this book with some trepidation, as so much of the scarce writing on Central Asia is badly written and/or distorted (by ignorance, by political or cultural biases, by academese, etc), but it's genuinely good. Having lived in Kyrgyzstan during and immediately after some of the events described in the book, it was a joy to read such a well-crafted narrative that doesn't twist the complicated reality of the place to achieve that narrative. A riveting book that finally gives me a book to recommend without reservations to people who want to understand Central Asia better.

It is good that Shishkin wrote this book and added a quality volume to the remarkably small number of recent books about Central Asia. I really did enjoy the book; my one criticism is that his language becomes exhausting rather quickly--too many colloquialisms and cheap phrases. If the reader can move past this (or accept it, as I did) he/she will experience a fantastic history of the past 8 or so years in Kyrgyzstan. And what characters you will meet!3/5 stars from me. I would be willing to pick up another book by Shishkin.

There aren't a lot of people reporting on Central Asia, a region that captivates me more than anywhere else for reasons beyond my understanding, and what Shishkin does in this book is nothing short of amazing, largely because he has unearthed some truths about Uzbekistan and has lived to write about it. The book deals mostly with Kyrgyzstan, a spellbinding land dripping with folktale and myth where a revolution seems to occur every other week. But it does jump into Uzbekistan which is essentially Stalinist Russia during the Purges right now, although the leader is Islam Karimov (oddly, he represses Muslims most harshly), he's known to boil people alive, and of course he's an American ally. Lest anyone still think our efforts in recent wars were about spreading democracy, ask yourself why this guy is our ally; it was his country we needed for landing bases and staging grounds to spread said democracy to lands just a touch further south and west. Illusions shattered yet?Shishkin weaves history and current reportage into fascinating narratives of people living in these sad countries. I was riveted, but as I said, I'm pretty smitten with this area of the world.

As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Kyrgyzstan during the 2010 Revolution, I can tell Peter Shishkin knows his stuff about Central Asia. I'm only ~70% through the book but it has provided a great deal of insight and information that I would have never known without reading, even though I learned Kyrgyz during my time there. A great work on Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia.

I’ve been thinking about whether I would have liked this book more on audio or if it would have been entirely too confusing and I can’t really decide. It’s written by a journalist who spent time in central Asia (particularly focused on the titular Ferghana Valley, which includes territory inside both Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) and recounts loosely connected stories from his experiences there. I’m usually interested in stories about the former USSR, and there is a lot of stuff here that is attention-grabbing conceptually: murders! corruption! dictators! The way this was organized, though, did not at all work for me. Single stories were broken up in ways that felt jarring and made it hard to remember details that seemed like they should have been important. This is absolutely a symptom of Western privilege, but the names are unfamiliar and so keeping track of the players was a challenge. Some of the financial crimes that went along with the corruption are recounted in levels of detail that at least for me, rendered them obtuse and difficult to follow. It’s not like I got nothing out of the book, but it felt like it was actively fighting against my efforts to get drawn into it so it ended up feeling like a slog.

Fabulous investigation of Central Asia's modern, political history takes us there into the inner sanctums of power and control after the breakup of the USSR. The author documents sources and makes good effort to be objective. The Fergana Valley and its surrounding countries laying claim to it, come alive in Shishkin's report. Well done. Very exciting. Very authentic.

Second hand but as good as new - great condition..

A description of the (complicated) make-up of a new country, by a journalist present at creation. The book is more journalistic than academic, but interesting nonetheless. A must read for the visitors to the country - but I guess that there not that many of them. A pity, because it is a beautiful place.It also cover events in the neighbouring countries, but in a lesser extend.

quite interesting, but was expecting a bit more (maybe because I read ghost wars before, which is immensely dense). Overall exciting stories.

I thoroughly recommend this book. I am interested in Central Asia and know a little of the current political situation but this book is incredible on the detail particularly of politics and economics in Kirghistan over the last 15 years or so. The author has spoken to many of the protagonists and has been there at some of the most important episodes. The use off Wikileaks cables as references adds to the authenticity. The research required for this book has been huge and bearing in mind the deaths of a large number of those mentioned this is a book written by a brave man.On the negative side the book deserves a good editor - there is too much repetition and it could do with tightening up generallyBut if you have any interest in Central Asia or want to know how small dictatorships work in practise then get this bookI thought it was brilliant

excellent introduction to a country that far too little is written about. if you have any interest in Kyrgyzstan then i highly recommend this book