This volume had its origins in the conference "The Roads to Oxiana: The Writing of Travel at the Crossroads of Asia" hosted by the UCLA Program on Central Asia in November 2010.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: travel, writing and the global history of Central Asia / Nile Green -- Identity, information and trade, c.1500-1850. -- Early modern circulation and the question of "patriotism" between Central Asia and India / Sanjay Subrahmanyam -- Prescribing the boundaries of knowledge: seventeenth century Russian diplomatic missions to Central Asia / Ron Sela -- Central Asians in the eighteenth century Qing illustrations of tributary peoples / Laura Hostetler -- The steppe roads of Central Asia and the Persian captivity narrative of Mirza Mahmud Taqi / Abbas Amanat and Arash Khazeni -- Empire, archaeology and the arts, c.1850-1940. -- "The Rubicon between the empires": the river Oxus in the nineteenth century British geographical imaginary / Kate Teltscher -- Buddhist relics from the western regions: Japanese archaeological exploration of Central Asia / Imre Galambos -- A Russian futurist in Asia: Velimir Khlebnikov's travelogue in verse / Ronald Vroon -- Narrating the Ichkari soundscape: European and American travelers on Central Asian women's lives and music / Tanya Merchant.