Olivier Hein, "Mother of the World: The Remarkable History of Turkmenistan" (Hurst, 2026)

Asian Review of Books · Jul 2, 2026 · 52m

Turkmenistan rarely makes international headlines–and when it did, it was often stories that highlighted things like the strange cult of personality that surrounded Saparmurat Niyazov, its first post-Soviet president, who named months after himself and made his memoir required reading.

Olivier Hein joins us on the show today to talk about Turkmenistan’s long history: as a possible origin for Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic faith; the rise of Merv, at one point possibly one of the world’s largest cities; the emergence of the Turkmen; and how this region ended up becoming the crossroads…