Nursultan Nazarbayev, as President of Kazakhstan, has steered his country from relative obscurity as a satellite of the Soviet Union to an independent republic playing a major role in central Asia and, indeed, on the global scene. His personal story has become increasingly bound up with that of his country and its people. And it is an extraordinary story of a child of humble birth rising by natural gifts, courage and imagination to national authority and international respect. It is a story paralleled by the formidable ascendancy, economic success and prosperity of Kazakhstan. Meanwhile Nazarbayev himself has emerged as a thinker of sagacity on an impressive scale, whose vision reaches beyond the confines of Kazakhstan and far into the future of the global community. This book charts that story in the form of an illustrated chronological narrative.