Reviews

The opening contribution to the extremely varied content of the volume is The role of the Turkic peoples in the ethnic history of Eastern Europe; it offers a lucid analysis of and background to all that is to follow, making the very pertinent observation (p. 34) as to the manner of the interpretation of the historical events, the ethnic movements and the religious consequences that came about due to the successive waves of invasion and settlement of pagan and Muslim peoples from the steppes over the centuries into Eastern Europe. [...]the voyagers account of his travels in the Crimea has left us with valuable and first-hand sources of information in his rihla, and especially with regard to its varied communities, including those in Staryj Krym (Solkhat) Feodosia/ Theodosia and Tana (Azov), during Tatar rule in the fourteenth century. In sum, though this book is a corpus of past contributions, these articles now published together form a primary reference source for any whose fields of interest are connected with the history of the peoples their archaeology, ethnicity and languages who had once lived and fought, and who had settled, within the steppes of Eurasia and its borderlands, during the latter part of the Middle Ages.