What are the best books to read about the history of Central Asia?

by TorbjornOskarsson

I'm particularly interested in the time in between the collapse of the mongolian empire and the expansion of the russian empire into the region

jschooltiger

There's not a ton of (English-langugage) scholarship in the region, but when I traveled there I asked the same question here. The UN History of Civilizations of Central Asia was a consensus choice, and is free to read -- you can download the PDFs here. You probably want volumes 4 and 5, or at least the latter half of volume 4.