The Legacy Of Kashmir Ladakh Skardu

In Pamirian Crossroads and Beyond Hermann Kreutzmann offers insights in his fieldwork-based research in High Asia during four decades. A human-geographical perspective is pursued in which case studies about colonial and post-colonial boundary-making, exchange relations of mountain communities across international borders, the transformation of agricultural and pastoral practices and the effects of modernisation strategies in neighbouring countries are centred in the Hindukush, Wakhan Quadrangle, Pamirian Crossroads, Karakoram Mountains and Himalaya. Empirical evidence is augmented by in-depth archival research, thus allowing a perspective from the 19th to the 21st century. By shifting the focus to mountain peripheries and emphasising spaces in between urban centres of power in Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and the Central Asian Republics different arenas of confrontation and effective changes emerge.

This volume addresses these issues through the description of a series of interventions of territorial planning, environmental protection, recovery of historic buildings and traditional villages and the provement of living conditions. 260 b/w & 220 colour illustrations

Parvez Dewan can send you to sleep about Ladakh. If anyone has the Ultimate Dossier on this land, it is he, after years of running about India's northern-most region, administering and adventuring his way around its desert plains, passes and lakes. Along the way, he discovered that Kargil and Leh had large Buddhas carved into the mountainside, noticed that the `world's purest Aryans,' the Drokpas, weren't amused by suggestions that there was mass kissing at their festival and taught himself polo on the endless Kargyak Plains - the highest inhabited place in the world. Parvez started the Ladakh Festival, threw open to tourists seven thitherto `forbidden' areas (but got bounced back from Siachen), developed an admiration for the history, culture and people of the Pak Occupied Gilgit-Baltistan-Hunza region, introduced the Suru Valley and Goshan Murad Bagh to the international media, and waited for weeks to sight the snow leopard. He was luckier with the wild ass, Brahmini ducks and black necked cranes, though.

Having lived among the Wakhis of northern Pakistan for several years, Sabine Felmy studied their history and oral traditions. Her descriptions of recent developments in the Karakoram provides unique insights into the changing Wakhi culture.

The International Association for Ladakh Studies (IALS) was formed to provide contacts between all who are interested in the study of Ladakh to organise colloquia and to publish the proceedings and to issue a newsletter Ladakh Studies.