As evidence of the Chinese state's atrocities against non-Han peoples in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region accumulated during 2017–19, scholars specializing in the region published numerous essays in nonacademic publications, describing and interpreting state policies for a broad public. With the appearance of two edited volumes this year (the other is Byler et al.'s Xinjiang Year Zero [2022]),1 the body of scholarly work, much of it by those same authors, has expanded substantially. As the volume's subtitle suggests, The Xinjiang Emergency's authors focus less on the well-established facts of what the state has done and more on the causes and effects of those policies. This involves substantial historical contextualization, to which the first section is devoted, including what is to my knowledge the first detailed history of the state's destruction of the Kashgar old city, by Anna Hayes. The essays collectively make a strong case that the roots...

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