This talk introduces key themes from Scott Levi’s recent book on the Khanate of Khoqand, a surprisingly dynamic state that emerged over the course of the eighteenth century in eastern Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley. The lecture addresses the ways that political, economic, technological and environmental developments influenced life in Central Asia and contributed to the rise, and fall, of Khoqand. It also identifies a number of ways that Central Asians influenced the policies of their much larger imperial neighbors on the Eurasian periphery – especially Tsarist Russia and Qing China.