On Arid Ground

Reviewed by: On Arid Ground: Political Ecologies of Empire in Russian Central Asia by Jennifer Keating Sean McDaniel (bio) Jennifer Keating, On Arid Ground: Political Ecologies of Empire in Russian Central Asia. xiii + 252 pp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. ISBN 9780192855251. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192855251.003.0001. A basic premise of Jennifer Keating's exciting new work is that in "one way or another, the history of empire is fundamentally environmental" and in understanding the subject thusly, it follows that "empire does not work upon nature, but is generated by it, develops through it, just as nature is likewise generated by and through empire" (3). Working off this argument, Keating expertly weaves together histories of Turkestan, Russia's final imperial project, to highlight the interconnection between politics, society, and the environment—an area of inquiry long overlooked within the historical narrative, but which is thankfully gaining more attention. The argument that drives her work is that "as Russian power was consolidated [in the region], a huge amount of social, political, symbolic, and economic value was attached to ecological development" (7). Keating divides her book into six thematic chapters. She focuses the opening chapter on the empire's railroad network throughout the region—dubbed the "magical iron band"—highlighting the far-reaching effects the various projects had on the local ecosystems. In chapter 2, Keating features the story of the Murgab Imperial Estate, a lavish imperial oasis retreat built in the harsh desert environment of southeast Turkestan, to discuss land reclamation projects intended to demonstrate imperial mastery over the terrain. Chapter 3 considers the ecological impact of Slavic resettlement in Turkestan; a migratory movement Keating acknowledges was of modest proportions when compared to the Great Siberian Migration, but which ultimately tells us more about the political ecology of the Russian Empire. Chapter 4 explores the "afterlives" of the commodities the Russian Empire reaped in Turkestan. Here, Keating is less concerned about the process of commodification than about how these commodities reshaped the imagined space of the region by portraying it as a land of abundance, a "crown jewel" of the empire. Chapter 5 pieces together a broader history of Turkestan's natural resources, shifting focus away from the traditional story of the region as a cotton ("white gold") monoculture by drawing attention to some of its arguably equally important, albeit less known and less lucrative, products. Finally, chapter 6 brings Keating's story full circle by illuminating the environmental impacts of World War I on Turkestan and focusing on the environmental dimensions of the 1916 rebellion, events that signaled a death knell for the empire and the end of its political ecology in the region. [End Page 253] As the subtitle to her work suggests, Keating utilizes the "diverse field" of political ecology, which, apart from pure history, draws on anthropology and environmental science to tell her story of empire and environment in Russian Turkestan. She focuses on a period from the 1860s to 1916, bookends that mark the culminating process of Russian advances in Central Asia and the rebellion that largely brought an end to that asymmetrical power regime, respectively. While a great deal of her work is bound up in discussions of the region's natural resources with repeated emphasis on cotton, Keating refers time and again to recent literature that has re-evaluated Russia's incursion as a rather haphazard string of events, subject to fits and starts, rather than a coordinated effort driven by economic factors—a version Alexander Morrison has referred to as the "Cotton Canard." She emphasizes that while economic gains did not necessarily drive this Russian power grab, they certainly factored heavily at its conclusion, firmly establishing the region as a "commodity frontier" via "railway colonialism," which left indelible marks upon the various ecosystems. The resulting push to settle the region, Keating argues, highlights the Russian Empire's "civilizing mission" in which Slavic peasant migrants were encouraged to transform the landscape into green spaces reflective of their more heavily forested homes back west, in the process physically rooting Russia's imperial presence in the region. Through various construction, irrigation, and land reclamation projects, Keating shows how Russian imperial agents attempted

Ancient history · Argument (complex analysis · Empire · Geography · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · History · History of Science and Medicine · Law · Soviet and Russian History