Dismantling the Soviet Union had rarely-examined effects on remote rural families. This book documents the impacts of transition on pastoralists,through multidisciplinary field studies at several sites between 1998-2000. Topics include: Asian agrarian reform, vegetation dynamics, livestock nutrition, grazing patterns, marketing and pastoral income, land degradation, institutions for managing pasture and livestock. The fourteen authors include five Central Asian scientists, and range from social anthropologists, animal scientists, economists, pasture agronomists and climate ecologists. The book will be of interest to researchers on range and livestock in semi-arid areas and to policy analysts of transition in the rural areas of the former Soviet Union.