Caucasus: A Journey to the Land between Christianity and Islam

Nick Griffin had taken a trip to the Caucasus to make a film about this region and turned it into an historical treatise. He does a great job of intertwining recent history with the history of the areas he is travelling through. More importantly he spends a lot of time trying to educate the reader into the culture, society and thought processes of the people who live there.

What we see in the overall picture is that the Russians who have tried to control this area since the middle of the 19th century have never learned to deal with these people with anything but force which has never worked. Though the Russians controlled the area they never controlled the people. The Chechens have turned out to be the most resourceful, and have been fighting off and on against their occupiers for over 150 years.

For anyone who wants to get a overall view as to what is the cause of troubles in this region, this book is invaluable. I look forward to reading his follow book.

Historical facts blend with a travelogue narrative recounting Nicholas Griffin's personal journey through the region in his vividly written Caucasus, an informed and informative examination of the clash of cultures and ancient to modern conflicts inherent in this strife torn area. From headlines about the Chechen insurgency, to the terrain and everyday life of the Caucasus peoples, Nicholas Griffin's Caucasus is not to be missed.

I've always felt much safer following novelists into non-fiction than say biographers, or historians into the realms of fiction. Griffin, who has written a couple of historical novels, is on familiar, though foreign ground. His fictional stories seem to examine cruelty and hope and his first work of non-fiction is no exception. It's a mixture of many genres, all neatly rolled into a short, decisive book. The Caucasus is one of those places, much like the Balkans, which used to confuse me to the point where I'd rather turn the page. But Griffin keeps everything simple and clear, following myths, history and politics along the lines of an expanding Christian nation (Russia) and a defensive Islamic nation (what came to be called Chechnya, Dagestan and Azerbaijan). This book is obviously more topical than the author thought when starting it four years ago. My only complaint is in the inclusion of the author's own travels. At first, it didn't feel as if they merited belonging, but once you catch the writer's drift, that everything is really very close to how it was two hundred years ago, his aims become more and more apparent. Caucasus is blessedly easy to read, and that's no mean feat.