Book excerpt: The 2008 Georgian-Russian war focused the world’s attention on the Caucasus. South Ossetia and Abkhazia had been de facto independent since the early 1990s. However, Russia’s granting of recognition on 26 August 2008 changed regional dynamics. The Caucasus is one of the most ethnically diverse areas on earth, and the conflicts examined here present their own complexities. This book sets the issues in their historical and political contexts and discusses potential future problems. This volume is distinguished from others devoted to the same themes by the extensive use the author (a Georgian specialist) makes of Georgian sources, inaccessible to most commentators. His translated citations thus cast a unique and revealing light on the interethnic relations that have fuelled these conflicts.