The Caspian Region, Volume 1: A Re-Emerging Region

In the 1990s, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, new states, most of them Muslim, emerged in Central Asia and the Caucasus. A need has thus arisen for information on the new area - what has increasingly been referred to as "the Caspian Region". This volume aims to draw attention to issues neglected so far. It deals with the water problem and negotiations in Central Asia, and with little-known conflicts, such as the issues of "Southern Azerbaijan", Ajaria and Javakheti and the various problems of multi-ethnic Daghestan. It also examines two attempts at unity in the Northern Caucasus. The volume also re-examines some of the established truths with regard to the states surrounding the Caspian Sea. Among the issues dealt with is the validity of the term "Caspian Region" and the question of who should be included in this new region. The collection questions the general belief that the Caspian region will be "a geopolitical centre of the 21st Century" as well as the axiom that thedissolution of the USSR has reopened the "Great Game", and re-examines the questions of democracy, of fundamentalist Islam and of the complex, ambivalent relationship between Islam and nationalism in the region.