Book Review - "The Caucasus: An Introduction" By Frederik Coene

Frederik Coene is no stranger to the Caucasus. Currently the Attaché dealing with post-conflict assistance in the European Commissions’ Mission to Georgia, he has also worked in organisations on both sides of the Caucasus Mountains, dealing with conflicts and developments. It is unfortunate that Mr Coene’s on-ground experience – he worked in the North Caucasus during the savage violence of the Beslan school siege, for instance - does not always come through in this informative, but sometimes slightly shallow, volume.To be clear, The Caucasus: An Introduction is intended to be just that. Mr Coene sets out his aim at the beginning: a thorough introductory volume which would “provide factual information [and also] help the reader to understand the Caucasus a bit better”. The author argues that, for all the books on the Caucasus, there are none which combine and link the many different aspects of the region into a whole.