The Spectacular State: Culture and National Identity in UzbekistanLaura L. Adams offers unique insight into nation building in Central Asia during the post Soviet era through an exploration of Uzbekistan's production of national culture in the 1990s. As she explains, after independence the Uzbek government maintained a monopoly over ideology, exploiting the remaining Soviet institutional and cultural legacies. The state expressed national identity through tightly controlled mass spectacles, including theatrical and