Wild West China: The Untold Story of a Frontier Land – Christian Tyler

I thought that I might find this heavy going, but after the froth and insubstantial fare of The Colour of Heaven I felt in need of something a bit meatier.

And Christian Tyler provided that in his (her?) history and analysis of Xinjiang, the region of steppe, desert and mountain that sits as the buffer between China and the Central Asian republics, and which now is becoming increasingly dominated by Han Chinese at the expense of the Uighur people – whose language is Turkic and religion is Islam.

A really stimulating and easy to digest read, on a topic which has made me all the more determined to make that trip from Beijing to Kashgar, and if possible onwards along the Silk Route to the West. In fact, this journey, perhaps?

Buy it: Amazon link