This volume is an important addition to a spate of recent publications rethinking events that transpired in the Russian Empire just over a century ago. Like many of these publications, one of its aims is to place the history of the Central Asian Revolt—or, more accurately, revolts (3)—within a broader historical context that includes World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the ensuing civil war. Chapters by Ian Campbell, Alexander Morrison, and Jörn Happel emphasize Central Asia's relationship with the Russian empire, enabling comparison with imperial collapse in other borderland regions and with other anti-colonial rebellions globally, while contributions by Danielle Ross, Xavier Hallez, and Isabelle Ohayon place the rebellion within longer histories of Central Asia and the Kazakh Steppe. The essays in the volume are deeply researched, drawing on published and archival materials; particularly noteworthy is the use of non-Russian primary sources, including Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uyghur oral and written poetry and folksongs. Daniel Prior's translation of a Kyrgyz narrative in verse is itself a valuable contribution to indigenous sources about the revolts. The volume should also be commended on its international authorship and inclusion of numerous contributions from Central Asian scholars.

Although the articles do not have to be read in particular order, The Central Asian Revolt of 1916 lends itself to a thorough reading from the introduction through Chapter 14. Each successive chapter, while not building directly on the research in previous chapters, contributes to the emergence of a cohesive picture of the events of 1916 and their aftermath, with minor differences in interpretation or emphasis; cross-references to other essays in the volume help to keep track of complementarities and differences between authors’ arguments. According to the account that emerges, the removal by decree on June 25, 1916 (not 1915, as stated on page 15) of a cherished privilege—the exemption of inorodtsy from military service—was the “spark” igniting a series of separate but related revolts across Russian Turkestan. Although it is clear that local specificities mattered, certain factors emerge as salient throughout the region. Many chapters note the weaknesses of Russian rule in Turkestan (Oybek Mahmudov even suggests that regional colonial officials lived in a kind of “virtual reality”), the role of rumor, and the difficult position occupied by indigenous authority figures as imperial intermediaries, particularly when faced with drawing up conscription lists (Tomohiko Uyama argues that the absence of birth registers in Russian Turkestan exacerbated conflict when implementing the mobilization decree in Central Asia, in contrast to other regions of the empire).

The volume lays persistent myths to rest: foreign interference did not play an important role in 1916 (though as Niccolò Pianciola and Ablet Kamalov point out, transnational factors such as the cross-border opium trade with China should be taken into account); Islam was not a primary motivating force (though the notion of ghazavat, or holy war, was sometimes used to mobilize, and Sufi-led resistance in the North Caucasus and Ferghana Valley had helped shape colonial officials’ expectations); and neither the “class struggle” paradigm invoked by Soviet scholars, nor the “national” character imputed to the revolts by nationalist partisans today is an adequate explanation for the complex inter- and intra-ethnic tensions revealed across Central Asia in 1916 (though social hierarchies did matter, and as both Ross and Jipar Duishembieva argue, the Bolshevik nationalities policy provided an impetus for reframing 1916 within new national narratives). While memory of 1916 may have helped consolidate ethnic identities in the Soviet period, the authors do not argue that the violence of 1916 was ethnic cleansing or genocide.

In spite of the wealth of information provided, questions about 1916 remain. In Semireche, conflicts over land between settler colonists and indigenous nomads clearly contributed to violence, yet the essays only hint at what those conflicts looked like before 1916. Were conditions such by 1916 that any attempt at peaceful mutual coexistence was bound to break down, if provided with a spark such as the mobilization decree? Outside of Semireche, moreover, these tensions remain murkier. If land and water issues explain why violence broke out even in sedentary regions, as Akmal Bazarbaev and Cloé Drieu suggest in their study of Jizzakh district, why were cotton-growing regions like the Ferghana Valley (in which the Andijan Uprising took place in 1898) largely quiescent, though they faced similar issues with food supply? Differences in violence within Semireche (itself a vast region) or between regions of Turkestan are only partially addressed; Pianciola's emphasis on employing different scales of analysis to understand the spatial circumscription of “peaks” of violence (170) provides a potentially useful starting point. One also wonders how adding the Turkmen case, which the editors admit is missing, would complicate the narrative. Nevertheless, this volume presents a rich set of theories, concepts, and materials with which to work toward synthesizing a more complete picture of the revolts of 1916.

The introduction by editors Aminat Chokobaeva, Drieu, and Morrison provides an excellent overview of the historiography and debates over 1916. The glossary is also helpful. Yet a few additional resources could have made the volume more accessible to non-specialists. For instance, a timeline would help to place the many details of localized and subregional events within the larger regional context. The fact that much of Central Asia did not see violence prevents the initial map from providing much more than an overview of the region. In addition to the map of Jizzakh on page 83, a detailed map of Semireche would have helped to visualize spatial variations in violence. Standardizing variations in place names (Kuldja vs. Ghulja, for example) between index, essays, and map would also make the volume more accessible to those unfamiliar with the region (as would correcting unfortunate spellings on the map, such as Bykhara and Yarkland). Overall, however, the volume is a much-needed addition to the current scholarship on the revolts of 1916. The level of detail makes it most appropriate for advanced scholars, but individual chapters may also find their place in an advanced undergraduate classroom.