As for the origin of modern Algeria, academic circles, especially western scholars, often take the “Origin Theory of Ottomans” as the explanation path, that is, Algerian countries can only be traced back to the Ottoman Empire at the earliest, and it lacks attention and research on the early Algerian countries. The earliest political entity in Algeria originated from several tribal alliances formed during the 4th to 3th centuries BC. In the colonial period of The Roman Empire, under the dual pressure of external invasion and internal competition, these tribal alliances successively established the chiefdoms Numidia kingdom and romanized local regime in the form of wars. In the 7th century, after the entry of Islam, the natural cohesion of tribal civilization combined with the religious cohesion of Arab-Islamic civilization gave birth to several local emirates. The 11th and 13th centuries were a ripe period for the formation of the early Algerian state. Through religious change, the Berber tribes of the desert frontier launched numerous conquests in the heartland, creating two frontier empires. The historical facts of Algeria’s early state formation reflect that there had been rich political civilization in Africa before the western colonial rule.

After decades of geography and area studies drifting apart, I argue there has been an area studies’ turn in geography. The long divergence between the two subjects, however, has resulted in a certain misunderstanding by geographers of what area studies scholarship is and what this field can contribute to the discipline. Area studies should not be considered as an approach that merely concentrates on the representation of difference but rather as a milieu in which research of regional differences can be conducted and geographical concepts can be ‘diffracted’. Area studies can bring new research methods to geography, providing us ways to explore what role geography plays in the world, and how it ties up with the world.

In area-study disciplines, world history is not only an important foundation, but also one of its important interdisciplinary subjects. “Country” and “Area” are the two wheels of the historical research of area-study disciplines. Since its birth, the discipline of world history has become more closely related to nation-statcs and has grown strongcr. When scholars use world history research methods to discuss the history of countries and areas, they will make extensive use of knowledge, concepts and languages based on a modern perspective. The possible direction of combining world history and global history with area studies is to pay attention to the relationship or correlation between human groups and to adopt a “successive history” approach; try to exclude centrality, that is, when examining area history, do not focus on a specific area, and treat all areas and human beings as equally as possible; based on the position and perspective of “global village residents”, discover and emphasize the commonalities of countries in all areas; on the basis of consolidating “vertical history” , strengthen “lateral history” research to return to the grand narrative. In the process of deepening area studies, it is necessary to grasp the principles of focusing on important issues and real problems, adhering to the principle of “theory comes from history”, paying attention to the complexity of area studies, making good use of comparative research, and raising practice to a theoretical level. By adopting research methods such as global history, it will be possible to promote the better integration and development of area studies and world history disciplines.

Russian expansion into Central Asia in the 19th century is usually seen either as the product of lobbying by big capitalist interests in Moscow, or as a wholly unplanned process driven by “men on the spot" who slipped beyond St. Petersburg s control. This article is a micro-study of one of the campaigns which immediately preceded the fall of Tashkent in 1865, during which Russian forces under General M. G. Cherniaev united the Orenburg and Siberian “lines” of fortification to create what was meant to be a permanent new frontier on the steppe. It demonstrates that neither of these explanations is satisfactory-economic calculations played a minor role in Russian decision-making, while there was an au-thorised plan for expansion in the region. However this plan rested on the premise that the Russians could identify a “natural" frontier in the region, marked by a river, watershed or mountain range. The instructions given to Cherniaev and other “men on the spot” reflected this, but a lack of detailed geographical knowledge meant that these orders were often contradictory or impossible to fulill. It was this which allowed Chermiaev to determine the timetable (though not the direction) of Russian expansion, and would see the fall of Tashkent in June 1865.