James Forsyth is former Reader and Head of the Department of Russian at the University of Aberdeen. His publications include A History of the Peoples of Siberia (Cambridge, 1992).

Introduction; 1. Caucasian origins; 2. Early medieval Caucasia: the seventh to tenth centuries; 3. The Caucasus, Persia, Turkestan, Azerbaijan, Europe: 10th-12th centuries; 4. The later Crusades, Mongols and Ottoman Turks 13th-15th centuries; 5. Georgia, Shirvan and North Caucasus to the 15th century; 6. Caucasia between Persia and Ottoman Turkey; 7. The Caucasus and the Russians; 8. Caucasia in the eighteenth century; 9. Russia's conquest of the Caucasus; 10. World War and Russian revolution; 11. Independent Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and North Caucasus; 12. White Russians, native insurrection, Bolshevik conquest; 13. The North and South Caucasus peoples 1920-39; 14. The Second World War, Beria and Stalin; 15. Caucasia from Stalin's death to the 1980s (1); 16. Caucasia from Stalin's death to the 1980s (2); 17. The Caucasus and the end of the Soviet Union; 18. Armenia, Karabagh, Azerbaijan; 19. Georgia 1987-93; 20. North Caucasus 1987-93; 21. The Caucasus enters the twenty-first century; 22. Russian arbitrary politics and Georgian resurgence; Bibliography.