In the stench of crude state-sponsored propaganda war surrounding the region's modern history De Waal's book is a much needed breath of fresh(er) air. The Author rightly mentions in the beginning of the book that "The whole picture is deeply complex and makes the Balkans seem simple by comparison". Indeed, way too often we witness overly amateurish and simplistic (thus mostly wrong) views on the region expressed in various publications - both online and in print - as well as on some international forums from OIC through EU up to UN. De Waal's book - despite all its drawbacks (some highlighted below) - is one of the best independent references for anybody who is genuinely interested in the region and its immediate future.

To all fairness to the Author, he seems to get closer to "calling a spade a spade" in "The Caucasus: An Introduction" compared to his previous landmark publication "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War". For example, he seems to have adjusted his somewhat simplified view of Karabakh conflict as a war between "Russian-supported" Armenian and "pro-Turkish" Azerbaijan. Instead, in "The Caucasus..." he calls Russian assistance "erratic" and highlights important facts about Azeris inheriting from the Soviet Army substantially more weaponry and ammunition than Armenian side did.

However, De Waal still misses three fundamental factors shaping the core essence of the current Armenian-Azeri conflict which in turn determines the division of the region.

1) The Big Elephant in the room - which De Waal chooses not to notice - is perceived imbalance in force - in terms of wealth, population, unconditional political, diplomatic, economic and military support from at least one local power - between Azerbaijan and Armenia. This imbalance was the real driver behind Azeri central government's decision to attack the rebel province in 90-ies, and it will probably play the same role if war breaks out in future (without doubt it would be again started by Azeri side). Needless to say that while back in 90-ies the imbalance was both real and much wider than it is today - it proved to be misleading as Azeris never matched the determination of ethnic Karabakh Armenians consequently losing the war.

2) Out of three major Caucasus nations only Armenians stood on the brink of a total physical annihilation. While it's great that the Author doesn't dodge the fact of Armenian Genocide (confirmed in the book in highly diplomatic manner: "...the Armenians have a strong case"), unfortunately, he rarely mentions it elsewhere. However, the Genocide - still not apologized for let alone compensated - occupies a pivotal role in Armenian national consciousness - similar to, if not bigger than, the role of the Holocaust for Jews. The feelings experienced by Armenians around the World during Karabakh war and Armenian pogroms of 80-ies and 90-ies could hardly be properly described leaving the Genocide out of the context. Yet, for some reason, Author chooses to do exactly that.

3) One other key factor which didn't deserve proper attention in "The Caucasus..." is another "disputed territory" - Nakhichevan (Armenian for "the place of descent" referring to Noah's Ark). While Nakhichevan was mentioned several times the dots were never connected leaving a gaping hole in the big picture. While writing about the infamous destruction of the legendary Armenian medieval cemetery by Azeri military in 2006 De Waal doesn't say anything about scores of Armenian churches razed to ground by Azeris since independence (search wikipedia on subject of Nakhichevan for more details). The Author writes about "clear Azeri majority" in Nakhichevan when it was granted to Azerbaijan SSR, without actually saying that back in 1915 about 40% was still Armenian. Why Nakhichevan is so important? Because it represents a vivid reminder of what would have happened to Karabakh - that is complete and final de-Armenisation both in terms of population and all historic monuments - had it lost the war with the Azeri central government. I refuse to believe the Author - after so many years of studying the conflict - is not aware of this simple truth. Yet, once again, he decides to conveniently "forget" about it in apparent pursuit of falsely understood "neutrality".

At the same time, unlike Armenian-Azeri conflict, the author seems to speak more freely about Abkhazian and Ossetian conflicts. He doesn't shy away describing the assimilation policy against Abkhaz during Soviet years, mentioning that Abkhazians fought with their "backs against the wall", and reprimanding Georgian nationalists for their "reflex" of calling the rebel regions "Georgian lands". He also is very clear pointing out on the side which started the infamous war in Ossetia in 2008. One can only guess that such directness of Author is enabled by Georgian authorities being more receptive (or at least less "allergic") to information they don't like compared to their Azeri counterparts.

While the Author is arguably the best-known independent expert in the modern history of the region, more distant past is hardly his forte. When describing the history of Armenians and Georgians he writes "the first tangible chain of continuity form the past comes with the arrival of Christianity" (!) although several pages later he mentions Armenian's golden age dating back to 1st century BC of King Tigran's ruling. At the same time the real value of the book undoubtedly lies in the core part describing the modern history of the region. Here, considering the current "noise" surrounding the subject, De Waal did a remarkable job.

The last but not least - I can't but support the book's underlying vision - however Utopian it may sound today - that the only chance for the Caucasus in truly unlocking its huge potential both in talent and natural resources lies in the united region with transparent borders and its nations working and living together in peace resisting both outside influence and inside nationalist forces. However distant that perspective is - the book is a small step towards promoting that vision. I'd like to believe De Waal's next steps will be bolder. But for that he needs to start distinguishing the difference between "neutral" and "neutered".

Actually, speaking as a professional linguist who does research on Caucasian languages, I have to back up Colinzw on the language density question. The Arabs were the first to call the Caucasus the 'mountain of languages', but that was mostly because their knowledge of the world was limited. Papua New Guinea and various places in Austronesia are indeed the places of highest language density, greater than would be expected purely because of terrain: although it is mountainous, the ecology of PNG leads to low-protein diets which in turn leads to fissioning of communities. Because communities cannot grow larger than a certain size, the threshold for loss of communication is lowered and consequently more languages exist there than would otherwise be the case. Many of these are as different from each other as French and Chinese, not at all merely 'dialects' of each other. In the Caucasus, the only area with even remotely high language density is in Daghestan, with some 30 or more languages; Georgia, with a similar size, has about 10. Indeed, it is mostly in comparison to Western Europe, most of whose minority languages have already gone extinct, that the Caucasus stands out.

Transparency International's 2010 International Corruption Perceptions Index of 178 countries sums up a lot about the recent problems in this region:
Russia came in at 154th - 49 places below the next European nation and a whopping 86 places below Georgia at 68th!

I know which side of the border I'd prefer to live on!

"Yet the experience of the Caucasus under the Soviet Union was not as bad as most, as they largely skipped the second world war" Total military and civilian losses of the individual Soviet republics were: Armenia 180,000; Azerbaijan 300,000; Georgia 300,000 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties. Not as bad indeed

the caucasus is not the place with the highest density of languages
from the wiki article for the "languages of vanuatu":
In addition, however, there are over one hundred local languages spread over the archipelago. Vanuatu is considered to be the country with the highest density of languages per capita in the world, with an average of about 2,000 speakers for each indigenous language; only Papua New Guinea comes close. Some of these languages are very endangered, with only a handful of speakers, and indeed several have become extinct in recent times. Generally however, despite the low numbers for most of the indigenous languages, they are not considered especially vulnerable for extinction.[1]

The great problem of this region is lack of proper democracy — Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh being the sole less authoritarian elements in the pack, according to Freedom House.

Georgia may be more modernized than azerbaijan, but one only has to visit Armenia to see that it is just as, if not more, modern than Georgia.

The Caucasus is the place with the highest density of languages, if you count really different languages and simply dialects or closely related languages as is the case with Vanuatu.

If natural barriers form the boundary between continents, eg Ural Mountains between Europe & Asia, why are the states south of the Causcasus range considered to be a part of Europe? Is it because Georgians & Armenians are christians?

"In the end, though, the Red Army regained control"

I don't think the Red Army had had any control there before...

Ozatmk wrote:
If natural barriers form the boundary between continents, eg Ural Mountains between Europe & Asia, why are the states south of the Caucasus range considered to be a part of Europe? Is it because Georgians & Armenians are Christians?

I think Israel is also considered "European"...so you can assume its a Judeo-Christian thing.