Central Asia in International Relations: The Legacies of Halford Mackinder is an edited academic book that was published in the United Kingdom in the year 2013 by C. Hurst and Co. (Publishers) Ltd., London. The book, which is 296 pages and comes in hardback (ISBN 978 1 84904 243 7), is edited by Nick Megoran and Sevara Sharapova. It offers the findings of historians, political geographers, and political scientists to examine how the geopolitical idea of Sir Halford Mackinder has been significant to the study and practice of international relations in Central Asia. 

The book is divided into three key thematic sections that are preceded by an introduction and end with a conclusion, bibliography, and index. The first section returns to the direct involvement of Mackinder in Central Asia as part of the British imperial policy. The second section follows the geographical and intellectual dissemination of the ideas of Mackinder to the area, especially Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The third section evaluates the current applicability and shortcomings of the Heartland theory of international relations in Central Asia as further elucidated by Mackinder in the 21st century. Overall, the size includes ten substantive chapters, including the introduction and conclusion. 

It is placed in the broader discussions about geopolitics and international relations theory. This book provides a critical analysis of how the ideas of Mackinder have been understood and modified over the years and have been argued upon. This review claims that the book has contributed to theory greatly because it no longer refers to the Central Asian region as a passive geopolitical object but as a region where the international positioning of the region is achieved along pre-conceptually contingent ideas, narratives, and scholarly practices. 

The thesis statement of Central Asia in International Relations: The Legacies of Halford Mackinder is that the geopolitical role of Central Asia cannot be explained based on geographical determinism only, but should be interpreted through historical circulation, reinterpretation, and political appropriation of the Heartland theory by Halford Mackinder. The volume questions the idea that the thoughts of Mackinder provide an explanatory paradigm of international relations in Central Asia that remains unchanged through time. Rather, it shows that the power of Mackinder is carried on largely by discourse, intellectual legacy, and policy narratives and not by geography itself. 

The introductory........

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