A resident in Moscow since 1993, fluent in several languages and married to a Russian woman, Jeffrey Tayler is a savvy guide to the red-hot geopolitics of 21st-century Central Asia. From Moscow to Beijing, through mighty Kazakhstan, across the Silk Road to Kashgar, Urumqi and onwards to Beijing, Tayler is not so much interested in Marco Polo or Genghis Khan (though he makes a detour to visit his mausoleum in Inner Mongolia) but in Vladimir Putin and Russia's renewed control over the region.  (CAS168, $24.00)