For thousands of years, nomadic tribes occupied vast lands
beyond the limited reach of pre-modern empires. With the dawn of
the modern age, these peoples found themselves locked inside the
borders of powerful states whose drive to assimilate subject
populations into homogenous national projects has led to a rapid
dwindling of human cultural and biodiversity.
The Tarim Basin in northwest China has been home to the Turkic
Uyghurs for over a thousand years, but the Chinese Communist Party
has worked for decades to eliminate Uyghur cultural identity and
demographic predominance. Perhaps no place on earth provides a more
frightening example of modern methods and technology applied to
man's darkest and most ancient impulses.