Qazaqlïq, or Ambitious Brigandage, and the Formation of the Qazaqs

Joo-Yup Lee, Ph.D. (2012) in Turko-Persian Studies, University of Toronto, is an independent scholar publishing and working on state formation and identity in post-Mongol Central Eurasia. He has lectured on the steppe frontier in Perso-Islamic and Eurasian history at the University of Toronto.

"The author has done a great service for historians of the Kazakhs, particularly those hoping to introduce monolingual students to the rich sources for medieval Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Those wishing to follow along with Lee’s analysis more closely are welcomed to do so by the inclusion of two appendices marking the appearance and context of the terms qazaqlïq and qazaq in medieval (Appendix 1) and modern sources (Appendix 2). The book also includes several maps, though they are difficult to read as they contain only river courses, ethnic labels, and the occasional city. Comprising the annotated bibliography in the introduction, a bibliography, an index and two helpful family trees, the scholarly apparatus should be useful to a wide array of scholars even tangentially interested in the field of Kazakh history." - Michael Hancock-Parmer, Indiana University Bloomington, USA, in Central Asian Review, 2016