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Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, Expanded Edition
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Comments/Reviews
Description: The author of the acclaimed Azerbaijan Diary and Chechnya Diary now recounts his experiences in the strife-ridden Republic of Georgia and his return to Georgia during the 2008 war with Russia.
Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Georgia fell prey to a series of power struggles, rampant crime and corruption, secessionist wars, and the spillover of the war in neighboring Chechnya. Journalist Goltz traces these developments with the same kind of vivid, personal narrative that made his previous books so compelling.
This fast-paced, first-person account is filled with memorable portraits of individuals in high places and low. It traces the story from 1992 through to the present. This expanded edition features a new epilogue based on the author's experiences in Georgia during the August 2008 war.
Selected Contents:
Map of Georgia
Preface
Acknowledgments and Special Thanks
Prologue: A (New) Caucasian Chalk Circle
I: A Complex History
1. The Quest for Gamsakhurdia
2. A Far-Flung Piece of Paradise
3. The Silver Fox
4. An Abkhazian Interlude
5. The Fall of Zugdidi
II: Past as Prelude
6. Along the Banks of Mtkvari
7. (Muslim) Georgia on My Mind
8. Storm Clouds over Sukhumi
9. Pending War and the Death of a Friend
III: The Wretched Riviera
10. Sarajevo by the Sea
11. Black Sea Refugee
12. Aftermath in the Mountains
IV: There Dwell Dragons
13. Chaos in the Caucasus
14. Bridge Across the Inguri
15. Trying to Square a Chalk Circle
Epilogue: The Olympics War
Bibliography
Index
Photographic Essay follows page 191
Review(s): At his danger-hopping best, Thomas Goltz is a lyric poet of the chaos, wars and madness that crazed the small Caucasus Republic after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through the fog of high-octane fruit brandies and brilliantly recounted absurdities... Goltz communicates an instinctive understanding of both the tortured history of the Caucasus and its human victims. Hugh Pope, author of Sons of Conquerors (on the previous edition)
Thomas Goltz does it again, this time serving up a rollicking personal account of the formation and crisis of independent Georgia. Rich with insights on the country's ethnic patchwork, the book culminates with know-down drag-out reportage on the momentous siege of Sukhumi by Abkhaz separatists and Russian-sponsored irredentists. Frederick Starr, Central Asia-Caucus Institute, Johns Hopkins University (on the previous edition)
In between dodging landmines, vacuum bombs, and other ordnance, Mr. Goltz gives us a solid rundown of Georgia's convoluted history, but he excels at gritty first-person narrative ... and captures the mad-sad bravery of individual combatants. The Wall Street Journal (on the previous edition)
Goltz... captures the wanton violence, destruction of anything approximating a human existence, and mutual cruelty, hypocrisy, and venality of these brutal, often senseless bloodlettings far from the world's gaze. Foreign Affairs (on the previous edition)
    
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