As part of our commitment to making globally significant scholarship accessible to Central Asian audiences, CAPS Unlock translated and published Kazakh and Russian editions of Peter Frankopan’s The Earth Transformed: An Untold History.
This book, a sweeping exploration of how climate and the environment shaped human history, offered a new perspective on the forces that influenced civilizations, economies, and geopolitical shifts over time.
Frankopan, renowned for his work The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, presented a meticulously researched narrative that underscored how climate change played a defining role in shaping societies. From the fall of empires to the emergence of new political and economic orders, The Earth Transformed challenged readers to rethink history—not as a series of human-driven events alone, but as a complex interaction between people and their environment.
For Central Asia, a region historically shaped by shifting ecological and climatic conditions, this book held particular relevance. From the rise and fall of Silk Road civilizations to contemporary challenges posed by desertification, water shortages, and extreme weather, the themes explored in The Earth Transformed resonated deeply with the realities faced by Central Asian policymakers, scholars, and citizens.
The publication of The Earth Transformed in Kazakh and Russian was part of CAPS Unlock’s ongoing book translation initiative, which aimed to bring leading academic works into local languages. Following the success of our previous project translating Francis Fukuyama’s Liberalism and Its Discontents, this effort continued our mission to expand access to critical ideas, deepen intellectual discourse, and encourage informed debate across the region.
The book was officially launched in August 2024 in Almaty, with a public discussion featuring Peter Frankopan. The event provided an opportunity for scholars, students, and the general public to engage with the book’s key themes and reflect on their implications for Central Asia.
The translated editions of The Earth Transformed became available for purchase, with copies distributed through select bookstores and online platforms. CAPS Unlock invited readers across the region to explore this landmark work and reconsider the role of climate in shaping history.
As part of its effort to bring foundational political ideas into local conversations, CAPS Unlock partnered with Steppe & World Publishing to produce Kazakh and Russian translations of Francis Fukuyama’s Liberalism and Its Discontents. Originally published in English in 2022, the book examines the current crisis of liberal democracy and challenges faced by open societies around the world.
Fukuyama, a leading political theorist and professor at Stanford University, argues that liberalism has been pushed to breaking point by both ends of the political spectrum, neoliberals who elevate market fundamentalism above all else, and progressives who place identity at the center of political life. In doing so, both camps risk undermining the core tenets of liberalism: individual autonomy, rule of law, and limits on state power. The book makes the case for a return to liberalism’s classical foundations as a way of safeguarding democratic institutions in the face of rising authoritarianism.
For Central Asia, a region where liberal values are often misunderstood, misrepresented, or dismissed outright, the book offers a rare opportunity to engage seriously with one of the defining political debates of our time. Fukuyama’s analysis of illiberalism, including the threat posed by authoritarian regimes like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, resonates with ongoing discussions about governance, identity, and the rule of law across the region.
The Kazakh and Russian editions of Liberalism and Its Discontents were released in August 2023 in Almaty, with a public launch event featuring a recorded video address by Fukuyama and live discussion with scholars and civic leaders. The book was issued in a limited print run of 500 Kazakh and 1,000 Russian copies and made available at Meloman bookstores and online.
The translation formed the inaugural instalment in CAPS Unlock’s book translation initiative, designed to make globally influential scholarship accessible to Central Asian readers. It was supported by the Open Society Foundations and reflected CAPS Unlock’s broader mission to deepen public discourse, strengthen civic understanding, and equip readers with the ideas needed to navigate the region’s evolving political landscape.
