This book, first published in 1990, considers the uneasy relationship between Russia and Soviet Central Asia. Chapters examine both the significance of Asia to the Russian mind and the place that Asia has occupied in Russian geopolitical thinking in the last hundred years, showing that outbreaks of violence are simply a manifestation of a long-standing tension. This is a remarkable and comprehensive study, which will be of great value to those concerned with the history and future of Central Asia and Siberia.

Fearing the loss of Korea and Vietnam would touch off a chain reaction of other countries turning communist, the United States fought two major wars in the hinterlands of Asia. What accounts for such exaggerated alarm, and what were its consequences? Is a fear of the domino effect permanently rooted in the American strategic psyche, or has the United States now adopted a less alarmist approach? The essays in this book address these questions by examining domino thinking in United States and Soviet Cold War strategy, and in earlier historic settings. Combining theory and history in analyzing issues relevant to current public policy, Dominoes and Bandwagons examines the extent to which domino fears were a rational response, a psychological reaction, or a tactic in domestic politics.

Henry Sutherland Edwards (1828-1906) was a British author and journalist who over a long career worked in a wide range of genres, producing dramatic pieces, fiction, and serious journalism. In 1856 he went to Russia as correspondent of the Illustrated Times to cover the coronation of Tsar Alexander II. He remained in Moscow to study the language and married the daughter of a Scottish engineer who had settled in Russia. Sutherland developed a lifelong interest in Russian subjects, and wrote numerous essays and articles and several books on Russian themes. Russian Projects against India from the Czar Peter to General Skobeleff is a history of Russian interest in and expansion into Central Asia from the time of Peter the Great (1672-1725) to the late 19th century. Echoing what was a widely held view in Great Britain at the time, Sutherland writes in the preface: "Russian expeditions in Central Asia (supported at critical moments by intriguers in Persia and Afghanistan) have always been undertaken, not with a view to an improved frontier, the Russian frontier on the Central Asian side never having been threatened; nor for commercial purposes, the exports and imports between Russia and the Khanates being of the most trifling value, and quite out of proportion to the cost of occupying and administering the Russian possessions in Central Asia: but simply in order to place Russia in a position to threaten and, on a fitting opportunity, attack India." Among the Russian expeditions covered in detail by Sutherland are General Vasily Alexseevich Perovsky's expedition of 1839 to Khiva; Colonel Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev's mission of 1858 to Khiva and Bukhara; and General Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman's expedition to Khiva of 1872-73. The concluding chapter, "Projects for the Invasion of India," discusses several different schemes put forward by Russian military writers in the second half of the 19th century for Russian advances on India through Afghanistan. The book contains a fold-out color map of the Russo-Afghan frontier.