Book excerpt: The book offers a state-of-the-art overview of the complete history of Georgia from the beginnings until the present time. It contains an extensive list of sources, an historical geography and describes the prehistoric cultures as well as the political and cultural developments of the country: the first settlements and state formation in the second and first millennia B.C., the Parnavazid dynasty, Christianization, the invasions of Arabs and Turks, the Golden Age of the 12-13th centuries, Mongol rule, the disintegration of the state, the Russian occupation, the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918, the military invasion and control by the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the revival of the Georgian state.