Dr. S. Frederick Starr: What Was Islamic Culture and What Happened to It?

Dr. S. Frederick Starr is the author of Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane, which chronicles a forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. The book has been translated into 13 languages. He is the founding Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Instituteand Silk Road Studies Program, a joint transatlantic research center affiliated with the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in Washington (where he is a Research Professor).

His research on the countries of Greater Central Asia, their history, development, internal dynamics, as well as on US policy towards the region has resulted in twenty-two books and 200 published articles. His most recent book is The Ferghana Valley: The Heart of Central Asia. Dr. Starr is a frequent commentator on the affairs of the region, and the author of numerous articles in journals including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Review, Far East Economic Review, and op-eds in various leading American and international newspapers. During the past decade he has returned repeatedly to the challenge of reopening continental-wide transport passing through Central Asia and Afghanistan, which he sees as a key to success in Afghanistan itself. Dr. Starr was the founding Chairman of the Kennan Institute in Washington, and served as Vice President of Tulane University and President of the Aspen Institute and of Oberlin College (1983-94). He was closely involved in planning the University of Central Asia and the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy and is a trustee of the Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. He earned his PhD in History at Princeton, MA at King’s College, Cambridge, and his BA at Yale, and holds four honorary degrees.