Chinese Central Asia, long cloaked in mystery and legend, was the route of the ancient Silk Road over which goods and ideas flowed between China and Persia, India and Europe. It is a land of towering mountains and a desert so fearful that its name means ³if you go in, you won¹t come out.² Now called Xinjiang Province, this region is part of the PRC. Closed to outsiders by the Chinese gov¹t. in 1949, Xinjiang was opened briefly to foreign visitors between 1984 and 1990. Award-winning photographer Paul Conklin and his sons photographed the Uighur and Kazakh residents and traveled to the city of Kashgar, 2,000 years old. A fascinating look at a little-known but important part of China. Juvenile audiences.