From Alexander to Menander (through Darius): The imperial space of Ancient Central Asia and its context(s)

In the light of both the recent (and a forthcoming) publication of landmark collective volumes which provide a thorough synthesis of decades of – still ongoing – research on Central Asia from the earliest prehistory to the Umayyads, the present paper seeks to provide a concise, yet also up-to-date, overview of the main problems faced by recent scholarship while at the same time highlighting the most promising avenues for future work.