The Ghost of Freedom, Charles King
The Ghost of Freedom, Charles King
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The Ghost of Freedom
A History of the Caucasus

Author: Charles King

Narrator: Michael Page

Unabridged: 11 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/23/2017

Synopsis

The Caucasus mountains rise at the intersection of Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. A land of astonishing natural beauty and a dizzying array of ancient cultures, the Caucasus for most of the twentieth century lay inside the Soviet Union, before movements of national liberation created newly independent countries and sparked the devastating war in Chechnya.

Charles King reveals how tsars, highlanders, revolutionaries, and adventurers have contributed to the fascinating history of this borderland, providing an indispensable guide to the complicated histories, politics, and cultures of this intriguing frontier.

Based on new research in multiple languages, the book shows how the struggle for freedom in the mountains, hills, and plains of the Caucasus has been a perennial theme over the last two hundred years—a struggle which has led to liberation as well as to new forms of captivity. The book sheds valuable light on the origins of modern disputes, including the ongoing war in Chechnya, conflicts in Georgia and Azerbaijan, and debates over oil from the Caspian Sea and its impact on world markets.

About Charles King

Charles King is Professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University, chair of the Department of Government, and former faculty chair of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

He lectures widely on global affairs and has worked with broadcast media including CNN, National Public Radio, the BBC, the History Channel, and MTV. A native of the Ozark hill country, King studied history and politics at the University of Arkansas and Oxford University, where he was a British Marshall Scholar.

He won the National Jewish Book Award for his novel Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams and the French Prix de Voyage Urbain "Le Figaro-Peninsula Paris" for his novel Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bob

A thoughtfully-written history For many Americans “Caucasus” may signify those tight little groups that meet during party conventions every four years. For others, it might bring to mind a skin disease or a kind of weird cookie that their Ruritanian grandma used to bake. If the name is far from Ameri......more

Goodreads review by Ed

The title of this book is based on Aleksandr Pushkin's description of the Caucasus as the outsider's romantic dream of freedom in his poem “The Prisoner of the Caucasus”, about a romance between a Russian prisoner and a Circassian woman. Inspired by Pushkin, Tolstoy wrote a novella based on Pushkin’......more

Goodreads review by Clayton

Not so much "A History of the Caucasus," as the title suggests, as a survey of its interactions with the empires of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. The two or three thousand years of history that happened before Catherine the Great are glossed over, and as the bibliography indicates, most of it......more

Goodreads review by Nannette

The Ghost of Freedom A History of the Caucasus Author Charles King Narrated by Michael Page Publication date May 23, 2017 Running time 12 hrs Courtesy Tantor Media At 54 and with chronic health conditions, I know I will never have the opportunity to travel to the many wondrous places on our planet I would......more

Goodreads review by Terence

The good thing about this book is that it's a serviceable introduction to the Caucasus for anyone who's not terribly familiar with the region. Unfortunately, it's difficult for an English-language reader to progress much further since a lot of the scholarship is in Russian or some other foreign lang......more

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