Drawing on three decades of research and travel in Kyrgyzstan, Encounters at the Edge of the Muslim World: A Political Memoir of Kyrgyzstan takes readers on a journey through the unlikely birth and tumultuous development of Central Asia’s most open society. With citizens of independent Kyrgyzstan stripped of their Soviet identity, the book illustrates how alternative loyalties based on kinship, geography, statehood, and religion competed for prominence in ways that often complicated the new country’s political, social, and economic development. Unlike Huskey’s earlier academic work on Kyrgyzstan, this book employs first-person narrative to tell the stories of leaders and citizens trying to navigate the transition from communism, where identities, property, and the rules of the political game were constantly in dispute.
Dr. Eugene Huskey is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Political Science at Stetson University. His research on Kyrgyzstan first took him to the country in 1992, six months after Kyrgyzstan’s emergence as an independent state. He has travelled to Kyrgyzstan regularly since then to conduct research, teach at the American University of Central Asia, train Kyrgyzstani political scientists, and participate in a mission for the International Center for Transitional Justice.
Kadyr M. Toktogulov, Ambassador of the Kyrgyz Republic to the United States of America. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Toktogulov served as Press secretary to Kyrgyz Republic’s President Almazbek Atambaev. Before joining the Office of the President, he worked as Chief of Information Policy Department at the Office of the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan. Mr. Toktogulov worked previously as a a correspondent for the Associated Press, Dow Jones Newswires, and contributed stories to the Wall Street Journal. He holds a BA degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from the American University of Central Asia.
