Togzhan Kassenova, "Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb" (Stanford UP, 2022)

Togzhan Kassenova, "Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb" (Stanford UP, 2022)

This month we are delighted to host Togzhan Kassenova on our NBN Central Asian Studies podcast. Dr Kassenova is the author of the beautifully researched yet very readable Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb (Stanford University Press, 2022). Atomic Steppe tells the untold true story of how Kazakhstan said no to the most powerful weapons in human history. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the newly independent Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. Would it give up these fire-ready weapons--or try to become a Central Asian North Korea? This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present. Equipped with intimate personal perspective and untapped archival resources, Togzhan Kassenova introduces us to the engineers turned diplomats, villagers turned activists, and scientists turned pacifists who worked toward disarmament. With thousands of nuclear weapons still present around the world, the story of how Kazakhs gave up their nuclear inheritance holds urgent lessons for global security. Togzhan Kassenova is senior fellow at the University at Albany, SUNY and a nonresident fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Follow her on Twitter @tkassenova Luca Anceschi is Professor of Eurasian Studies at the University of Glasgow, where he is also the editor of Europe-Asia Studies. Follow him on Twitter @anceschistan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

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Foster Chamberlin, "Uncivil Guard: Policing, Military Culture, and the Coming of the Spanish Civil War" (Louisiana State UP, 2025)

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In Uncivil Guard: Policing, Military Culture, and the Coming of the Spanish Civil War (Louisiana State UP, 2025), Foster Chamberlin evaluates the role of militarized police forces in the political vio...

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Gudrun Persson, "Russian Military Thought: The Evolution of Strategy Since the Crimean War" (Georgetown UP, 2025)

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The development of the Russian military's strategic thought is an understudied and thus misunderstood subject in the West. Strategy in Russia encompasses the broader context of foreign and domestic po...

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Matthew Moran et al., "Coercing Syria on Chemical Weapons" (Oxford UP, 2025)

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In 2012, US President Barack Obama stated that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons on its population would cross a red line that would require the US government to reconsider its approach ...

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12 Mar 48min

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9 Mar 40min

Patrick Chung, "Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

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6 Mar 1h 1min

Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast, "Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast, "Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War" (Oxford UP, 2025)

The battlefields were not the only places that threatened death during World War I. As conflict raged on and supply lines tightened, the allied powers of France, Britain, and Italy faced a fundamental...

3 Mar 54min

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