Best Books on the Khazar Empire and the Eurasian Steppes

The Khazar Empire controlled the western Eurasian steppe from roughly the seventh to the tenth century CE, at its peak spanning territory from the Caucasus to the Volga and west toward the Crimea. They held the northern flank against the Arab expansion that swept through Persia and across North Africa, defeating a major Arab army at the Battle of Ardabil in 730. They traded with the Byzantine Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate, and the early Rus merchants who came down the river routes from the north. And at some point in the eighth or ninth century, their ruling elite converted to Judaism, a decision that produced one of the most enduring puzzles in medieval history and one of the most persistent modern controversies. These books cover all of it. ## Why the Khazars Matter The Khazar Empire blocked Arab expansion northward at a period when the Arab conquests were transforming the entire world from Spain to Central Asia. Without the Khazar barrier, the steppe route into eastern Europe would have been open. What Byzantine civilization and the emerging Slavic world would have looked like under sustained Arab pressure is a genuine historical question. The Khazars also sat at the commercial crossroads between the Silk Road, the Baltic amber trade, and the Black Sea networks. Their capital Atil on the Volga was one of the great trading cities of the early medieval world, cosmopolitan enough to host permanent quarters for Muslim, Jewish, and Christian merchants. ## 1. The Jews of Khazaria by Kevin Alan Brook Brook's book is the most comprehensive English-language study of the Khazars available to a general reader. He covers the empire's political history, its commercial networks, and the conversion of the ruling class to Judaism, drawing on Arab, Byzantine, Hebrew, and Slavic sources. The book is thorough on the archaeological evidence and careful about the limits of what can be known. This is the starting point for anyone interested in the subject. [Check price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1442205032?tag=31813-20) ## 2. The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler Koestler's 1976 book argued that Ashkenazi Jews were primarily descended from Khazar converts rather than from the ancient Israelites of the Middle East. The book was controversial when published and has been largely rejected by subsequent genetic and historical research. But it belongs on this list for two reasons. First, it brought the Khazars to a wide general audience and remains the reason many people first encounter the subject. Second, understanding why Koestler's thesis was rejected helps you understand what the actual evidence shows. Read it alongside Brook's book and the refutations are instructive. [Check price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394402847?tag=31813-20) ## 3. Empires of the Silk Road by Christopher I. Beckwith Beckwith's study is not specifically about the Khazars but it is essential reading for understanding the steppe world they inhabited. He argues that the steppe empires, from the Scythians through the Mongols, were sophisticated political and commercial entities that shaped Eurasian history far more than the sedentary empires that wrote most of the surviving records. The Khazars appear in his account as one of the most successful examples of a steppe confederation that managed both commercial networks and border defense simultaneously. [Check price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691150346?tag=31813-20) ## The Conversion Debate Why did the Khazar ruling elite convert to Judaism? The sources offer several explanations. The most dramatic, preserved in the Khazar Correspondence, a series of letters between the Khazar king Joseph and a Spanish Jewish official in the tenth century, claims that a formal religious debate was held at the Khazar court, with representatives of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all arguing their case, and that Judaism won. Most historians treat this account as literary rather than historical. The likelier explanations involve the geopolitical logic of a state caught between Christian Byzantium and the Muslim Caliphate, for whom a third religion offered political neutrality, combined with existing Jewish merchant communities in Khazar territory who may have had a direct influence on the ruling class. ## What the Genetics Shows Modern genetic studies of Ashkenazi Jewish populations have not supported Koestler's Khazar hypothesis. The genetic evidence consistently points to a Middle Eastern origin for the core Ashkenazi population, with some European admixture but no significant Turkic or Khazar component. Brook's book discusses this evidence in detail. The Khazar conversion was real and historically significant, but it does not appear to have produced the demographic displacement that Koestler proposed. ## Further Reading For more books on medieval empires, the Eurasian steppes, and the history of the Middle Ages, browse the [history category](/category/history) on Skriuwer.