By contrast, the splendid cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva are monuments to the Uzbeks' Islamic civilisation.

ECONOMIST: Central Asia

Mr Marozzi has traced in person much of Temur's relentless campaign trail, and he elegiacally shows us how far Samarkand and Bukhara, once the most glorious cities in Asia, have descended.

ECONOMIST: Tamerlane

So popular was the maqom system in the ninth and tenth centuries that numerous music schools were founded, mainly by the Jewish community, in the city of Bukhara, the historical and spiritual centre of Shashmaqom.

UNESCO: Intangible Cultural Heritage

Moreover, unlike some travel writers he is refreshingly honest about the tricks he plays, reflecting harshly on the moral weakness that leads him, briefly, to feign a Jewish identity in order to win the trust of the surviving Jews of Bukhara.

ECONOMIST: The lost people of Central Asia