Introduction: The concept of Inner Asia

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If the continents of Europe and Asia are conceptual entities, Eurasia - the combined land mass of the two - is a physiogeographical one. Each of the sedentary civilizations - in loose terminology Europe, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia and East Asia - is a unique combination of cultural features. Some of these may appear in more than one area; yet an association of various components, moulded by a unique historical process and greatly influenced by national environment, made each of these regions different from the others. The frontier of Inner Asia is unstable; it has varied from age to age, shifting according to the balance of power between its own population and that of the surrounding, sedentary civilizations. The military efficiency of a nomad cavalry force was a function of its size, but the relationship between the number of horses and their military value was not a mathematical constant but a geometric progression.

Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521243049.002

Sinor, Denis, ed. The Cambridge history of early Inner Asia. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Copyright Cambridge University Press

1990