Caucasus: Mountain Men and Holy Wars

"The Caucasus is a jagged land. With Turkey to the west, Iran to the south, and Russia to the north, the Caucasus is trapped between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. If it didn't already possess the highest mountain range in Europe, the political pressure exerted from all sides would have forced the land to crack and rise. A borderland between Christian and Muslim worlds, the Caucasus is the front line of a fascinating and formidable clash of cultures: Russia versus the predominantly Muslim mountains." "Writer Nicholas Griffin travels to the mountains of the Caucasus to find the root of today's conflict. Mapping the rise of Islam through myth, history, and politics, this travelogue centers on the story of Imam Shamil, the greatest Muslim warrior of the nineteenth century, who led a twenty-five-year campaign against the invading Russians. Griffin follows the Imam's legacy into the war-torn present and finds his namesake, the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, continuing his struggle." Today, the balance of power in the Caucasus is based, as before, on Russia's relationship with her borderlands and the thorny question of Chechnya's desire for independence. The matter is complicated by a growing Islamic movement and a reputed 100 billion barrels of Caspian oil. The explosiveness of such a combination has fueled conflict after conflict, and still shows no sign of abating. Caucasus lifts the lid on a little-known but crucially important area of world.