LADAKH STUDIES 12, Autumn 1999 - International Association for ...

BOOK REVIEWS
Bibliography – Northern Pakistan. Edited by Irmtraud Stellrecht. Pakistan-German Research
Project. Culture Area Karakorum Scientific Studies. Vol. 1. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag,
1998. 647 pp., map.
This bibliography contains more than 4,000 entries covering the regions which now make up
Pakistan’s Northern Areas and parts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). It will be an
essential research tool for scholars working on these areas, and for Ladakh specialists looking for
comparative material on the regions to the west.
The bibliography stems from the joint German/Pakistani Culture Area Karakorum (CAK) project
(Vols 5 and 8 of the project’s publications were reviewed in Ladakh Studies 10 and 11
respectively). The project is interdisciplinary, and the main subjects covered include: physical
geography, climatology, botany, human geography, social/cultural anthropology and philology, with
additional contributions on archaeology and history. One of the strengths of the book is the inclusion
of ‘grey literature’ published by government agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
such as the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP). It also includes travel accounts from the
19th and early 20th centuries, as well as more recent times. The book covers material published up
to 1995, with the addition of publications by CAK contributors up to 1998.
The bibliography is arranged in alphabetical order of author, with additional thematic indexes
arranged by region and by subject. Entries are confined to bibliographic details with crossreferences
to the thematic indexes, but no further annotations. The areas covered include nearby
regions such as Ladakh, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan as well as northern Pakistan. The
bibliography cites material in most European languages, including Russian. However, it seems to be
surprisingly short on material in Urdu or other regional languages. For example, I looked in vain for
Abbas Kazmi’s book on Balti folksongs, Balti Lok Git (Islamabad, 1985).
The sections on neighbouring regions do not aspire to be comprehensive, but there are some 200
entries listed under ‘Ladakh’ including several which—to his mixed delight and chagrin—were
unfamiliar to this reviewer. Ladakh entries included a selection of articles from the first Recent
Research on Ladakh conference in Konstanz (Sander and Kantowsky 1983) and the third in
Herrnhut (Meier and Icke-Schwalbe 1990), but neither the second nor subsequent volumes.
In her introduction, Irmtraud Stellrecht mentions—with an unnecessary note of apology—some of
the tribulations faced by compilers of bibliographies. The work tends to be regarded as a sideline of
‘real’ research, and it is therefore hard to find sufficient funding. Much as one tries to be
comprehensive, there are always gaps in coverage. Subject indexes and varying conventions on the
spelling of non-Western names present their own problems, and—she might have added—proofreading
is especially troublesome.
And yet there are many rewards. One of the greatest is serendipity—finding books and articles
which you are not actively seeking, but which nonetheless open up new connections and directions
of research. This book will open up many new avenues for all of us interested in the wider Western
Himalaya/Karakorum region.
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