The Caspian Region, Volume 2: The Caucasus

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the world 'discovered' Central Asia and the Caucasus. The discovery of large oil and gas reserves has made the Caspian into a new strategically, and economically important area of the world. However, the resulting glut of new publications have been concerned with only a few superficial topics which have made the headlines. These two volumes intend to bring to public attention new issues and fresh approaches, which will give readers a fuller understanding of this part of the world as well as correcting some erroneous notions. The two volumes draw attention to issues neglected so far by both scholarly and popular publications. This volume considers the Caucasus, both the independent states and the autonomous republics within the Russian Federation. Rather than considering the known conflicts (Karabakh, Abkhazia, Ossetia-Ingushetia, Chechnya) it presents other, potentially important and volatile issues, and conflicts of Ajaria (Georgia) and Javakheti (Georgia- Armenia); and studies the Confederation of Caucasian Mountain Peoples, the problems facing the Cherkess (Circassian) national movement, and the internal and external conflicts affecting Daghestan, as well as the so-called 'Wahhabi' challenge. The collection questions the general belief that the Caspian region will be 'a geopolitical centre of the twenty-first century' as well as the axiom that the dissolution 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.