Product Description

The Caucasus mountains rise at the intersection of Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. A land of astonishing natural beauty and a dizzying array of ancient cultures, the Caucasus has often been the object of imperial ambition. South of the mountains, Persia and Ottoman Turkey vied for control of the lowland shepherds abd upland khans who inhabited the zone; to the north, the Russian empire wasged a war for mastery of the higlnads that lasted th better part of the nineteenth century. For most of the twentieth century, the entire Caucasus lay inside the Soviet Union, before movements of national liberation created newly independent countries and sparked the devastating war in Chechnya. The Ghost of Freedom is the first general history of the modern Caucasus, from the beginning of Russian imperial exapnsion up to rise of new countries after the Societ Union's collapse. Combining riveting storytelling with insightful essay-writing, the book provides an indispensible guide to the complicated histories, politics, and cultures of this intriguing frontier. Based on new research in multiple languages, it shows how the struggle for freedom in the mountains, hills, and plains of the Caucasus has been a perennial theme over the last two hundred years - a struggle which has led to liberation as well as to new forms of captivity. In evocative and accessible prose, Charles King reveals how tsars, highlanders, revolutionaries, and adventures have contributed to the fascinating history of this borderland. Ranging from the salons of Russian writers to the circus sideshows of America, from the offices of European diplomats to the village of Muslim mountaineers, The Ghost of Freedom paints a rich portrait of one the world's most volatile and least understood regions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #176077 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
King has produced a work that is remarkable for its breadth of coverage, the depth of the author's insights, and the eloquence of the text. It is hard to imagine how the goal King set himself could have been better achieved. (George Hewitt SOAS )

Charles King has written a very instructive and interesting book (Norman Stone New Statesman )

The Ghost of Freedom provides an excellent analysis of the region's turbulent history since the late 18th century; offers a rich exploration of how the Caucasus has been imagined by outsiders; and gives a good overview of contemporary conflicts and developments in the region. (Nina Caspersen, Times Higher Education Supplement )

Customer Reviews

A modern chronicle lacking deep historical perspective
Oh dear. I was really looking forward to an up-to-date examination of the turbulent history of the Caucasus after what has been a long period of scholarly neglect. Mr King has not proved to be the answer, with his rather superficial and even partial view of this centuries-old battleground between Christian and Islamic traditions. Lesley Blanch in the memorable "Sabres of Paradise" really got to grips with the cultural complexity and violent traditions of this stark and beautiful region. No-one who has read there the story of the Imam Shamyl will fail to see the contemporary relevance of such struggles between idealogies. Mr King, whilst an earnest student of Caucasian history, is simply not up to the task of explaining the immense complexity of this region with its coutless tribal lands and traditions, its proud history including the fabulous Georgian Bagratid dynasty who claim, probably correctly, to be consanguineous with David and Bathsheba and thus of Our Lord's lineage.

With the region still in ferment after Russia's aggression, on behalf of South Ossetia, against Georgia in 2008 and likely to be repeated, it would have been useful to have had a more rigorous conspectus of both the longer historical perspective and the more recent viccistudes in fortunes of the power players from the Caspian ports to the Armenian heartland to the Turkish frontier to the Islamic states to the South and to the endless vistas of Russia to the North.

This text will simply not do. The perspective is trans-Atlantic, the language tedious and the selectivity as to what makes for compelling and authoritative history sadly lacking. I have no doubt that Mr King is fascinated by the Caucasus - indeed who would not be given its seminal role in the historical continuum - but by seeking to provide a general guide he fails to go deep enough to explain the extraordinarily profound causes of tension that make the Caucasus one of the most fissile areas on earth. That, in spite of being one of the most beautiful and undiscovered regions too.

We must await a better modern historian for the Caucasus.