PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Ian Lanzillotti is Assistant Professor of History at Bethany College, USA.
In Land, Community and the State in the Caucasus Lanzillotti takes us right to the heart of the Northern Caucasus. Skilfully reconstructing the multi-layered history of Kabardino-Balkaria from the age of waning empires to the imagined nations of the present, he offers to the reader a fascinating longue duree of a region located in the geopolitical shatter zone of local and imperial rule. Defying the binary construed by official historiography and bottom-up ethno-nationalism alike, Lanzillotti draws from rare archival materials to produce a rich and multi-layered account of the organic interplay among state power, local space and the multiple communities that make themselves at home in it. The book is a must-read for historians and scholars of conflict studies alike who are eager to comprehend the crucial role of access to land at the nexus of peaceful cohabitation and violent conflict. * Dr David Leupold, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin, Germany * Ian Lanzillotti has conducted ground-breaking research, built on participant observation, summary of vast existing literature, and numerous new archival materials. In the course of his fieldwork in the Caucasus, the author found a new approach to understanding this well-studied but still perplexing region. Through the issue of access to land as the focal point of the study, this book analyzes the most important social and political problems that have been troubling the region. The vital findings of this book give cause for optimism for resolving centuries long conflicts in one of the most ethnically and confessionally diverse parts of the world. * Sufian N. Zhemukhov, Associate Research Professor of International Affairs, George Washington University, USA * In this pathbreaking, fascinating, and richly researched book, Ian Lanzillotti explores questions of nationality policy, inter-ethnic relations, national identity formation, and the daily, lived experience of ethnicity and confession across a full swath of modern Eurasian history. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the complex causes of violence, social stability, and relative peacefulness in ethnically diverse lands. * Nicholas Breyfogle, Associate Professor of History, Ohio State University, USA *
