In its first years as an independent state, Azerbaijan was a prime example of post-Soviet chaos - beset by coups and civil strife and astride an ethnic, political and religious divide. Author Goltz was detoured in Baku in mid-1991 and decided to stay, this diary is the record of his experiences.

Azerbaijan Diary: A Rogue Reporter's Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet Republic

First published in Vienna in 1937, this classic story of romance and adventure has been compared to "Dr. Zhivago" and "Romeo and Juliet".  Its mysterious author was recently the subject of a feature article in the "New Yorker", which has inspired a forthcoming biography. Out of print for nearly three decades until the hardcover re-release last year, "Ali and Nino" is Kurban Said's masterpiece. It is a captivating novel as evocative of the exotic desert landscape as it is of the passion between two people pulled apart by culture, religion, and war.

It is the eve of World War I in Baku, Azerbaijan, a city on the edge of the Caspian Sea, poised precariously between east and west.  Ali Khan Shirvanshir, a Muslim schoolboy from a proud, aristocratic family, has fallen in love with the beautiful and enigmatic Nino Kipiani, a Christian girl with distinctly European sensibilities.   To be together they must overcome blood feud and scandal, attempt a daring horseback rescue, and travel from the bustling street of oil-boom Baku, through starkly beautiful deserts and remote mountain villages, to the opulent palace of Ali's uncle in neighboring Persia.  Ultimately the lovers are drawn back to Baku, but when war threatens their future, Ali is forced to choose between his loyalty to the beliefs of his Asian ancestors and his profound devotion to Nino.  Combining the exotic fascination of a tale told by Scheherazade with the range and magnificence of an epic, "Ali and Nino" is a timeless classic of love in the face of war.

Ali and Nino

"A Harper has always lived at Harper House, the centuries-old mansion just outside of Memphis. And for as long as anyone alive remembers, the ghostly Harper Bride has walked the halls, singing lullabies at night..."

At forty-seven, Rosalind Harper is a woman whose experiences have made her strong enough to bend without breaking--and weather any storm. A widow with three grown sons, she survived a disastrous second marriage and built her In The Garden nursery from the ground up. Through the years, In The Garden has become more than just a thriving business--it is a symbol of hope and independence to Roz, and to the two women she shares it with. Newlywed Stella and new mother Hayley are the sisters of her heart, and together the three of them are the future of In The Garden.

But now the future is under attack, and Roz knows they can't fight this battle alone. Hired to investigate Roz's Harper ancestors, Dr. Mitchell Carnegie finds himself just as intrigued with Roz herself. And as they being to unravel the puzzle of the Harper Bride's identity, Roz is shocked to find herself falling for the fascinating genealogist. Now it is a desperate race to discover the truth before the unpredictable apparition lashes out at the one woman who can help her rest in peace...

Black Rose (In the Garden, #2)

Two wandering adventurers and unlikely soulmates are variously plying their trades as swords for hire, horse thieves and con artists - until fortune entangles them in the myriad schemes and battles that follow a bloody coup in the medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars.

Gentlemen of the Road

From the Academy award winning screenplay writer of Burnt by the Sun, Solar Plexus is a compelling saga of family and friendship, love and betrayal, set against the backdrop of Azerbaijan’s rapidly-changing capital, Baku, as the country struggles with the transition into a post-Soviet world...

Spanning three generations and stretching from the 1940s to the 1990s, the four distinct parts that make up Solar Plexus intertwine to tell the tale of a group of friends who grew-up around the same courtyard in Baku. Each section is told from a different perspective as the friends’ passions, deceits, rivalries and disappointments play out against the shifting turmoil of those decades: from the Great Patriotic War and Stalin’s Purges, to the industrial institutes and Russification of the ’50s and ’60s, through to the struggle for independence and violence of the early ’90s.

The lives of Alik, Marat, Lucky, Eldar and Seidzade are realised with rare insight and a superb eye for the bigger picture, but also with humour, and a recognition of life’s absurdity that recalls writers from Bulgakov to Kundera. Ibragimbekov evokes a world of passion and honour, of proud men and hot-headed women, of great tenderness and complex humanity, where “the truth is always just one of many truths.” The novel is equally a paean to the multiculturalism of Baku, and a time when a person’s worth was measured by their qualities, not whether they had been born an Azeri, Russian, Jew or Armenian – a time brought to a violent end by the war with Armenia, when friends and neighbours were suddenly turned against one another, and broad-minded inclusion gave way to an exclusive and crude nationalism.

Solar Plexus, A Baku Saga in Four Parts

Deliciously organized by the Seven Deadly Sins, here is a scintillating history of forbidden foods through the ages—and how these mouth-watering taboos have defined cultures around the world.

From the lusciously tempting fruit in the Garden of Eden to the divine "foie gras", Stewart Lee Allen engagingly illustrates that when a pleasure as primal as eating is criminalized, there is often an astonishing tale to tell. Among the foods thought to encourage Lust, the love apple (now known as the tomato) was thought to possess demonic spirits until the nineteenth century. The Gluttony “course” invites the reader to an ancient Roman dinner party where nearly every dish served—from poppy-crusted rodents to “Trojan Pork”—was considered a crime against the state. While the vice known as Sloth introduces the sad story of “The Lazy Root” (the potato), whose popularity in Ireland led British moralists to claim that the Great Famine was God’s way of punishing the Irish for eating a food that bred degeneracy and idleness.

Filled with incredible food history and the author’s travels to many of these exotic locales, "In the Devil’s Garden" also features recipes like the matzo-ball stews outlawed by the Spanish Inquisition and the forbidden “chocolate champagnes” of the Aztecs. This is truly a delectable book that will be consumed by food lovers, culinary historians, amateur anthropologists, and armchair travelers alike. "Bon appétit!
"

In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food

In "The Big Leap", Gay Hendricks, the "New York Times" bestselling author of "Five Wishes", demonstrates how to eliminate the barriers to success by overcoming false fears and beliefs. Fans of Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, and "The Secret" will find useful, effective tips for breaking down the walls to a better life in "The Big Leap".

The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level

When an ex–CIA station chief agrees to help an American spy in Azerbaijan, he finds himself in the middle of a ruthless espionage war involving China, Iran, and the United States.
________________________________

Mark Sava, former CIA station chief of Azerbaijan, lives a quiet life as a professor at Western University in the city of Baku. But his peace is shattered by both the assassination of a high-level American during an international oil conference and the arrest of CIA operations officer Daria Buckingham for the crime. 

Sava knows the Iranian American Buckingham well—he personally trained her—and doesn’t believe she had anything to do with the murder, so he visits a CIA control center to discuss the situation with the new station chief. When no one answers the outside intercom, Sava overrides the security code and stumbles upon the grisliest scene of his career. Now, he can’t help but wonder if he really knows Buckingham as well as he thought… 

Determined to find out, Sava soon finds himself and a partner caught in the middle of the new Great Game—a deadly intelligence war over oil that has Iran, China, and the United States clawing at each other’s throats. Meanwhile, Colonel Henry Amato, assistant to the U.S. national security advisor, is keeping a close watch on the situation from Washington. His stake in the Great Game is high—and personal. 

From the shadows of the world’s most volatile region to the highest levels of Washington politics, The Colonel’s Mistake takes readers on an unforgettable ride where the good, the bad, and the brutal play a deadly chess game of global espionage.

The Colonel's Mistake

'Mixing memory with desire, this marvelous and original book once more reminds us of ways through which the imagination becomes a refuge from the uncontrollable cruelties of reality.'

Part history, part cultural biography, and part literary mystery, The Orientalist traces the life of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a best-selling author in Nazi Germany. 

Born in 1905 to a wealthy family in the oil-boom city of Baku, at the edge of the czarist empire, Lev escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan. He found refuge in Germany, where, writing under the names Essad Bey and Kurban Said, his remarkable books about Islam, desert adventures, and global revolution, became celebrated across fascist Europe. His enduring masterpiece, Ali and Nino–a story of love across ethnic and religious boundaries, published on the eve of the Holocaust–is still in print today.

But Lev's life grew wilder than his wildest stories. He married an international heiress who had no idea of his true identity–until she divorced him in a tabloid scandal. His closest friend in New York, George Sylvester Viereck–also a friend of both Freud's and Einstein's–was arrested as the leading Nazi agent in the United States. Lev was invited to be Mussolini's official biographer–until the Fascists discovered his "true" identity. Under house arrest in the Amalfi cliff town of Positano, Lev wrote his last book–discovered in a half a dozen notebooks never before read by anyone–helped by a mysterious half-German salon hostess, an Algerian weapons-smuggler, and the poet Ezra Pound. 

Tom Reiss spent five years tracking down secret police records, love letters, diaries, and the deathbed notebooks. Beginning with a yearlong investigation for The New Yorker, he pursued Lev's story across ten countries and found himself caught up in encounters as dramatic and surreal, and sometimes as heartbreaking, as his subject's life. Reiss's quest for the truth buffets him from one weird character to the next: from the last heir of the Ottoman throne to a rock opera-composing baroness in an Austrian castle, to an aging starlet in a Hollywood bungalow full of cats and turtles.

As he tracks down the pieces of Lev Nussimbaum's deliberately obscured life, Reiss discovers a series of shadowy worlds–of European pan-Islamists, nihilist assassins, anti-Nazi book smugglers, Baku oil barons, Jewish Orientalists–that have also been forgotten. The result is a thoroughly unexpected picture of the twentieth century–of the origins of our ideas about race and religious self-definition, and of the roots of modern fanaticism and terrorism. Written with grace and infused with wonder, The Orientalist is an astonishing book.

The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life

In this fascinating book, noted journalist Thomas de Waal--author of the highly acclaimed "Black Garden"--makes the case that while the Caucasus is often treated as a sub-plot in the history of Russia, or as a mere gateway to Asia, the five-day war in Georgia, which flared into a major international crisis in 2008, proves that this is still a combustible region, whose inner dynamics and history deserve a much more complex appreciation from the wider world.

In "The Caucasus", de Waal provides this richer, deeper, and much-needed appreciation, one that reveals that the South Caucasus--Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, and their many smaller regions, enclaves, and breakaway entities--is a fascinating and distinct world unto itself. Providing both historical background and an insightful analysis of the period after 1991, de Waal sheds light on how the region has been scarred by the tumultuous scramble for independence and the three major conflicts that broke out with the end of the Soviet Union--Nagorny Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. The book examines the region as a major energy producer and exporter; offers a compelling account of the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the rise of Mikheil Saakashvili, and the August 2008 war; and considers the failure of the South Caucasus, thus far, to become a single viable region. In addition, the book features a dozen or so "boxes" which provide brief snapshots of such fascinating side topics as the Kurds, Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, the promotion of the region as the "Soviet Florida," and the most famous of all Georgians, Stalin.

"The Caucasus" delivers a vibrantly written and timely account of this turbulent region, one that will prove indispensable for all concerned with world politics. It is, as well, a stimulating read for armchair travelers and for anyone curious about far-flung corners of the world.

The Caucasus: An Introduction

An introspective and beautiful dual memoir by the #1 "New York Times" bestselling novelist and her daughter

Sue Monk Kidd has touched millions of readers with her novels "The Secret Life of Bees" and "The Mermaid Chair" and with her acclaimed nonfiction. In this intimate dual memoir, she and her daughter, Ann, offer distinct perspectives as a fifty-something and a twenty-something, each on a quest to redefine herself and to rediscover each other.

 Between 1998 and 2000, Sue and Ann travel throughout Greece and France. Sue, coming to grips with aging, caught in a creative vacuum, longing to reconnect with her grown daughter, struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel. Ann, just graduated from college, heartbroken and benumbed by the classic question about what to do with her life, grapples with a painful depression. As this modern-day Demeter and Persephone chronicle the richly symbolic and personal meaning of an array of inspiring figures and sites, they also each give voice to that most protean of connections: the bond of mother and daughter.

 A wise and involving book about feminine thresholds, spiritual growth, and renewal, "Traveling with Pomegranates" is both a revealing self-portrait by a beloved author and her daughter, a writer in the making, and a momentous story that will resonate with women everywhere.



Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey, and France

In 1990, two centuries of harsh domination culminated in Black January, when Soviet Troops opened fire on the civilian population of Baku. The following year, Azebaijan declared its independence and began rebuilding its political and economic system. Former Communists and opposition leaders continue to struggle for dominance.

Audrey L. Alstadt makes use of both Russian-language and Azerbaijani Turkish-language newspapers, journals, and scholarly publications. Much of this material has never been used in any other Western studies. Altstadt's original research adds the Azerbaijani perspective on the two-century relationship between Russia and Azerbaijan. She identifies key issues and actors and documents a pattern of continual struggle against colonial rule from the initial conquest to the political movements of the late twentieth century.

Russian domination has encompassed more than the military, political, and economic spheres. There have also been harsh restrictions on cultural expression, including killing leading intellectuals and falsifying historical facts. However, Azerbaijani Turks continue to thwart Russian control by protecting their rich and ancient heritage through native-language education and the arts. As Alstadt writes, "The Azerbaijani Turks used the antiquity of their history language, and literature as a weapon of self-defense, as proof they need no tutelage in self-government, economic management, education or literature."

The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule

Azerbaijan, a small post-Soviet republic located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, has outsized

Azerbaijan Since Independence

Though the countries in the Persian culinary region are home to diverse religions, cultures, languages, and politics, they are linked by beguiling food traditions and a love for the fresh and the tart. Color and spark come from ripe red pomegranates, golden saffron threads, and the fresh herbs served at every meal. Grilled kebabs, barbari breads, pilafs, and brightly colored condiments are everyday fare, as are rich soup-stews called ash and alluring sweets like rose water pudding and date-nut halvah.

 Our ambassador to this tasty world is the incomparable Naomi Duguid, who for more than 20 years has been bringing us exceptional recipes and mesmerizing tales from regions seemingly beyond our reach. More than 125 recipes, framed with stories and photographs of people and places, introduce us to a culinary paradise where ancient legends and ruins rub shoulders with new beginnings—where a wealth of history and culinary traditions makes it a compelling place to read about for cooks and travelers and for anyone hankering to experience the food of a wider world.

Taste of Persia: A Cook's Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan

A man holding fast to grief and a woman who lets go of love too easily. It will take all the magic of old diaries and a children's story to heal these two. Caught in grief and guilt over his wife's death, English professor Alan Francini is determined never to feel that much pain again. He avoids new relationships and keeps even his best friend at arms' length. His major solace is his family's ranch south of Denver. Children's book editor Kathy Jamison has learned through a lifetime of separations and a broken engagement that letting go is easier than hanging on. Then she meets Alan, and for once, begins to believe a lasting relationship is possible. But Alan panics and pushes her away into the arms of his best friend. Now the emotions of three people are at stake as they struggle to find a way to transform their broken dreams into a foundation for a more hopeful future.

Dreams for Stones

This book seeks to explore the relevance of major theoretical and methodological approaches currently dominating the field of ethnic conflict and civil war research, testing their efficacy by applying them to three major South Caucasus conflicts of the late 1980s and early 1990s.Souleimanov explores the causes and dynamics of ethnic conflict and civil war, distinguishing between onset-based and process-based theories. He introduces a scheme of periodization which links the phase of low-scale inter-ethnic violence with the phase of sustainable organized violence, asserting the crucial importance of elites and their use of opportunity in power asymmetry as a key factor in instigating full-scale civil war.As a merger of theoretical and empiricist approaches, this book focuses on the case-specific contextual richness of the local conflicts in Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia to draw solid theoretical conclusions as well as providing suggestions for the improvement of current theories. 






Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered

This study of women and gender in a Muslim society draws on archival and literary sources as well as the life stories of women of different generations to offer an ethnographic and historical account of the lives of urban women in contemporary Azerbaijan

Azeri Women in Transition: Women in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan

For Westerners, the modern state of Azerbaijan may be hard to pinpoint. This small, oil-rich country in the southern Caucasus, on the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea, only made its way on to the contemporary world map after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. As the world shrinks and competition for precious resources intensifies, the direction this strategically and economically important country takes will affect us all.
 
The historically tolerant and pluralist Azeri people have an ancient history and a rich culture. Azerbaijan lay on the route of the Great Silk Road, the trade network that connected China with Europe, and its people have lived through centuries of conquests by different imperial powers. It was also situated in the heart of the Great Game, the struggle for control of Central Asia played out between Russia and the West at the turn on the nineteenth century, which seems to be going through a modern remake. Azerbaijan has been called “the quintessential borderland, many times over: between Europe and Asia, Islam and Christianity, Russia and the Middle East, Turks and Iranians, Shi’a and Sunni Islam.”
 
Azerbaijan was briefly independent after the First World War, when it was the first Muslim state to adopt progressive Western values. A democratic republic with full women’s suffrage, it boasted the first women’s high school, the first opera, and the first female opera composer, as well as the first ballet in the Muslim world.
 
There followed seventy years of Soviet rule. After a bitter war in 1991–94, areas of Azerbaijan were occupied by neighboring Armenia, and the country has absorbed a huge number of refugees. At the same time, it is experiencing a new oil boom and the economy is growing. Among the people, there is a growing sense of national identity. "Culture Smart! Azerbaijan" looks at the many facets of this identity and explains the complex workings of Azerbaijani society. It will equip you with vital information and advice about the customs, practices, and sensibilities of a society poised on the brink of change.

Azerbaijan - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Assyrians invented the chariot and made wine eight thousand years ago. Who knew they still exist in the USA today?

The multigenerational story of a Christian minority family in a Moslem land follows its survival though genocide of World War I, emigration to gangland Chicago of the 1920's, the sacrifices the family made for the education, and rise of its prodigal son, Sam. 

Sam's story begins with humble agrarian village origins and continues through engineering school in the capitol city and graduate school in London. He becomes founder of a major civil engineering firm in Tehran with several hundred employees only to collide with the Iranian revolution of 1979 and his family's subsequent emigration to California and a new beginning. It is a story of solidarity, family loyalty and a love of country and the rich Iranian culture. 

No matter how foreign a culture may be, even one we owe much of our own heritage, we all share common humanity. We all strive to live in peace and to make the world a better place for our children. Discover an ancient people's culture living fully today in "Shamshone: Sun of Assyria".

Shamshone: Sun of Assyria: Five Generations of a Family from Iranian Azerbaijan

Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte lost her childhood to ethnic cleansing. In 1988, she was a ten year old girl living in the seaside city of Baku, in the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. Like any other young girl, she had childhood aspirations, crushes and dreams. That entire life was swept away as the majority Muslim Azeri population drove the minority Christian Armenians out of the country using terror and violence. Her family was forced to flee for their lives to Armenia, a neighboring republic still reeling from the massive earthquake and unprepared for the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Azeri-orchestrated pogroms. Once there, she found herself an outsider; a nationless girl surviving in an unheated basement and facing discrimination again, this time by her own people. Nowhere, A Story of Exile is a riveting, heart-wrenching story told through a personal medium; through the diary entries of a young girl documenting the organized terror in Baku, her life as a refugee, and her struggle to find herself, all against the backdrop of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Anna gives a voice to a horrific tragedy little reported in the West, to the Armenian population of Azerbaijan and to the child victims of ethnic cleansing everywhere.

Nowhere, a Story of Exile

Loosely based on a true story, Azeri author Alekper Aliyev's novel "Artush and Zaur" tells the love story of a gay Armenian-Azeri couple set in the 1990s and 2000s with references to the ongoing post-Soviet Armenian-Azeri armed conflict. Unfortunately, the book is available only in Russian and Dutch yet.

Artush and Zaur

An Autobiography like Something Out of the Arabian Nights In this lively and witty autobiography, Essad Bey, a.k.a. Lev Nussimbaum, tells us the story of his childhood in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and of his flight from the Russian Revolution in 1917, which brought him first straight through the Caucasus, then to Istanbul - where this book concludes - and finally to Berlin. When Essad Bey speaks of the people of the Caucasus and their customs so strange to us, a sort of anthropological cabinet of curiosities unfolds before our eyes, and we cannot help but be astonished. All the while, through his affectionate and sometimes openly ironic words, even the excesses of the Revolution sound like children's pranks and his hair-raising escape like an adventure novel. "Blood and Oil in the Orient" is an informative and entertaining book; in the 1930s, it was a bestseller in the U.S. and Germany.

Blood and Oil in the Orient: My childhood in Baku and my hair-raising escape through the Caucasus

Third edition of the guide that was the first and still remains the only dedicated guide to Azerbaijan. Features 200 maps with 180 explanatory visuals--vital in a country where there are few reliable maps. Includes full historical background, cultural tips, visas, where to stay, and where to eat for all budgets.


Azerbaijan, with Excursions to Georgia

The work of Nizami Ganjavi, a classical poet of the twelfth century, is fueling new cultural debate in Iran in recent years. The dominant discourse encourages the reading of the texts in light of biographical or theological conventions and religious motives. These essays explore Nizami’s influential role and his portrayal of issues related to love, women, and science, stressing his preoccupation with the art of speech as a major impetus behind his literary activity.


The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric

Am Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs verschlägt es die junge Asiadeh Anbari zusammen mit ihrem Vater aus dem feudalen Istanbul ins Berlin der zwanziger Jahre ? ein Kulturschock für das junge Mädchen, das streng muslimisch und in alten adligen Traditionen erzogen wurde. Eine starke Sehnsucht nach der Welt ihrer Kindheit erfüllt Asiadeh, bis sie den Wiener Arzt Hassa kennen lernt und schließlich heiratet. Doch dann taucht ihr einstiger Verlobter, der Prinz Abdul-Kerim auf, der unter fremdem Namen durch die Welt reist. Asiadeh muss sich entscheiden: zwischen zwei Männern und für die Welt, in der sie leben will.

Das Mädchen vom Goldenen Horn

Dunsterforce was named after its intrepid commander, Major-General Lionel Charles Dunsterville. It was a small, secret expedition – known from its clandestine nature as “the Hush-Hush army” – sent to the Caucasus at the end of 1917 in a bid to thwart Turkish encroachment into the region, hinder Russia's Bolsheviks and forestall any Russian attempts to move south into Persia or export revolution to British-ruled India. Small and ill-supplied, Dunsterforce made up for its weakness with the personal dash of its commander, who had already been immortalised in literature as “Stalky” in Rudyard Kipling’s public school tales. Kipling and Dunsterville had been schoolmates at United Services College at Westward Ho! in Devon. 

Dunsterville’s own book has plenty of derring-do as the general and his subordinate officers (who led sub-expeditions) dealt with the Kurdish, Persian and Cossack tribesmen throughout the vast mountainous area between the Black and Caspian Seas. In the end, Dunsterforce found itself battling in vain to save the oil rich town of Baku from the Turks until lack of resources and the fatal disunity among his allies compelled the force to withdraw with their mission unfulfilled. This colourful memoir, reflecting the charismatic character of its author, is an important source for anyone interested in the great power rivalry between Russia and Britain; in British intervention in Bolshevik Russia, and the unorthodox military campaigns of history.

The Adventures of Dunsterforce

Praise for "The Failure of Political Islam: "

During the anti-Gorbachev coup in August 1991 most communist leaders from Soviet central Asia backed the plotters. Within weeks of the coup's collapse, those same leaders--now transformed into ardent nationalists--proclaimed the independence of their nations, adopted new flags and new slogans, and discovered a new patriotism.

How were these new nations built, among peoples without any traditional nationalist heritage and no history of independent governance? Olivier Roy argues that Soviet practice had always been to build on local institutions and promote local elites, and that Soviet administration--as opposed to Soviet rhetoric--was always surprisingly decentralized in the far-flung corners of the empire. Thus, with home-grown political leaders and administrative institutions, national identities in central Asia emerged almost by stealth.

Roy's analysis of the new states in central Asia--Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikstan, Kirghizstan and Azerbaijan--provides a glimpse of the future of an increasingly fragmented and dangerous region.

The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations

The book description for the previously published The Baku Commune, 1917-1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution is not yet available.

The Baku Commune, 1917-1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution

The history of Azerbaijan is a chronology of its domination. Its most recent ruler was the USSR, but Azerbaijan has been within the boundaries of many conquerers from the Medians to Alexander the Great to the Arabs and Turks. Through the long history of foreign occupations, the Azeris have preserved a national identity and they have periodically generated local leaders. With the recent break up of the USSR, Azerbaijan can once again assert itself as an independent nation. Strategically located and of economic interest to other nations, Azerbaijan cannot be ignored. The Azeris are united by their language, Azeris, their religion, Islam, and a common history. However, since the Russian conquest of northern Azerbaijan in the first half of the nineteenth century, they have been divided by politics. Azerbaijan is a divided land; its cultural boundaries stretch beyond the geopolitical ones so that a large portion of what was once Azerbaijan is currently part of Iran, and more Azerbaijanis live within Iran (in Iranian Azerbaijan) than in the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. The contemporary history of Azerbaijan has been a complicated story. There is an on-going conflict with neighboring Armenia which has shaped not only foreign policy and relations, but the domestic politics of the nation. Those politics have been further complicated by Western interest in Azerbaijani off-shore oil deposits. Given its history, Azerbaijan is certainly not the easiest country to describe. This historical dictionary does an excellent job despite the difficulties. It provides entries on persons, institutions and events, with some emphasis on recent periods, but with a view of the earliest history. There are other entries on the important aspects of the economy, society, religion and culture. Also useful are an introduction for context, and a helpful chronology. A select bibliography of works in English and other languages completes the volume.

Historical Dictionary of Azerbaijan

"Gha-ra-bagh!" chronicles the initial stages of the former Soviet Union's first mass national democratic movement. The popular ground swell, which came to be known as the Karabagh movement, transformed the political consciousness of Soviet Armenians and led them to challenge the legitimacy of the Soviet system. The book, whose title refers to the chant that was used during demonstrations, brings to life the drama of the events of 1988 from the perspective of Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia. With vivid narrative detail, Malkasian recaptures the atmosphere, zeitgeist, and mood that permeated the public squares and main boulevards of the city. He documents the euphoria that marked the first large-scale demonstrations in February, the Kremlin's sobering rebukes in the summer, the tragedy of the December earthquake in northern Armenia, and escalating communal violence between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

"Gha-ra-bagh!": The Emergence of the National Democratic Movement in Armenia

This textbook, "The History of Azerbaijan" was written in accordance with the existing academic-thematic programme in this area of study. The history of the country is described starting from ancient times to the beginning of the 21st century. The maps in this book were originally published in the work "The Historical Geography of Azerbaijan" (Baku, 1986). This textbook is intended for students, lecturers and non-specialists working in the educational system as well as for the general reader with an interest in Azerbaijan.

The History of Azerbaijan: From Ancient Times to the Present Day

Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920 describes the rise of national identity among the Azerbaijanis - the Turkic-speaking Muslims of Russia's borderland with Iran - at the opening of the twentieth century. The principal focus is on the period from the Russian Revolution of 1905, when the Azerbaijanis began to articulate their national aspirations, until the establishment of the Soviet Azerbaijani Republic in 1920. The central theme of the book is the emergence of ideas, and then actions, that would create a new collective identity among the Muslims - a sense of nationality.

Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of a National Identity in a Muslim Community

This is a study of modern Iranian political history and is set in the international context of the Second World War and its aftermath. The book covers the essential background in Iranian political history in the 20th century including the role played by Azerbaijani politicians in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-6, the drastic reforms of the autocratic Reza Shah regime and its effect on ethnic identity in Iranian Azerbaijan, the abdication of the Shah, the role of the Allied Powers, and the occupations of Iran. The book draws on Turkish, Persian, and Azeri sources as well as British, French, American, and Soviet materials and interviews with surviving members of the period of autonomous government in Iranian Azerbaijan.


Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran

The Caspian-Caucasus region has received considerable attention over the past eight years. The old potential of this colossal territory is so significant that the analytical centres of the world's largest oil and refining companies consider it to be more long-term than the unstable Persian Gulf. "The Politics of Caspian Oil" is a collection of essays presenting the results of recent research, which should serve as a reference book for the politics of Caspian oil..


The Politics of Caspian Oil

"Choice" Outstanding Academic Title 2003

Black Garden is the definitive study of how Armenia and Azerbaijan, two southern Soviet republics, got sucked into a conflict that helped bring them to independence, bringing to an end the Soviet Union, and plaguing a region of great strategic importance. It cuts between a careful reconstruction of the history of Nagorny Karabakh conflict since 1988 and on-the-spot reporting on its convoluted aftermath.

Part contemporary history, part travel book, part political analysis, the book is based on six months traveling through the south Caucasus, more than 120 original interviews in the region, Moscow, and Washington, and unique primary sources, such as Politburo archives.

The historical chapters trace how the conflict lay unresolved in the Soviet era; how Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders exacerbated it; how the Politiburo failed to cope with the crisis; how the war began and ended; how the international community failed to sort out the conflict.

What emerges is a complex and subtle portrait of a beautiful and fascinating region, blighted by historical prejudice and conflict.

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan Diary: A Rogue Reporter's Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet Republic

Thomas Goltz

Ali and Nino

Kurban Said

Black Rose (In the Garden, #2)

Nora Roberts

Gentlemen of the Road

Michael Chabon

Solar Plexus, A Baku Saga in Four Parts

Rustam Ibragimbekov

In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food

Stewart Lee Allen

The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level

Gay Hendricks

The Colonel's Mistake

Dan Mayland

The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life

Tom Reiss

The Caucasus: An Introduction

Thomas de Waal

Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey, and France

Sue Monk Kidd

The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule

Audrey L. Altstadt

Azerbaijan Since Independence

Svante E. Cornell

Taste of Persia: A Cook's Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan

Naomi Duguid

Dreams for Stones

Ann Warner

Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered

Emil Souleimanov

Azeri Women in Transition: Women in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan

Farideh Heyat

Azerbaijan - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Nikki Kazimova

Shamshone: Sun of Assyria: Five Generations of a Family from Iranian Azerbaijan

Brian H. Appleton

Nowhere, a Story of Exile

Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte

Artush and Zaur

Əli Əkbər

Blood and Oil in the Orient: My childhood in Baku and my hair-raising escape through the Caucasus

Essad Bey

Azerbaijan, with Excursions to Georgia

Mark Elliott

The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric

Jerome W. Clinton

Das Mädchen vom Goldenen Horn

Kurban Said

The Adventures of Dunsterforce

Lionel Charles Dunsterville

The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations

Olivier Roy

The Baku Commune, 1917-1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution

Ronald Grigor Suny

Historical Dictionary of Azerbaijan

Tadeusz Świętochowski

"Gha-ra-bagh!": The Emergence of the National Democratic Movement in Armenia

Mark Malkasian

The History of Azerbaijan: From Ancient Times to the Present Day

Ismail Bey Zardabli

Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of a National Identity in a Muslim Community

Tadeusz Świętochowski

Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran

Touraj Atabaki

The Politics of Caspian Oil

Bülent Gökay

Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War

Thomas de Waal