This balanced history of Xinjiang and its Uyghur inhabitants traces the development of this ethnic group from imperial China to the present and its fraught relationship with the Chinese state. Morris Rossabi focuses especially on CCP policies, both progressive and repressive, toward the Uyghurs since 1949.

Morris Rossabi is Distinguished Professor of History at City University of New York and adjunct professor at Columbia University. He is the author of several celebrated works on Asian history and has collaborated on exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art. His books include A History of China, The Mongols: A Very Short Introduction, The Mongols and Global History, and Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times.