Undoubtedly a fine work. Comprehensive, Incisive and written with great passion. However it does assume at least a passing aquaintance with the actors, thus for the beginner it would be probably be advantageous to supplement with additional material.

All the reviews of this book are right on target: it includes excellent material (the best on the subject), great photographs, is very well written...but lacks maps, is badly organized and certainly not for beginners (i.e. anyone without a basic knowledge of Russian History, Military History and Political Theory). The book's weaknesses can be patched up by consulting John Pillani's recent article in *Slavic Military Studies*, June 2000: "Corpses Burning in the Streets": Russia's Doctrinal Flaws in the 1995 Fight for Grozny", which includes good maps as well as more "sympathy for the devil" than pro-Chechen Lieven is willing to grant. Also look up Lieven in the NYT index for updates on the Chechnya situation.

This book is one of the most important works for those who read, write and think about any of the following:

Capitalism;
RMA Issues;
Nation-States;
Revolutions;
Post-Soviet Society;
Islam;
Tribal Society;
East-West Divisions;
The Rule of Law;
War;
and Human Rights.

There is very little that this book does not at some point find a way to address. That is my only real problem with the text: Like its author, it has a way of involving many different ideas that may, or may not, actually hold together to make a compelling argument. However, unlike other authors' attempts to weave this kind of tapestry, this book succeeds more often that it confounds.

I think it is the first book I have read that accurately captured just what was going on in Chechnya in terms of what had happened in Moscow. This is more than a typical piece of modern war-correspondent work. This is an author who understands both sides of the conflict, and not only in terms of the tactical and strategic pictures. More than a blow-by-blow account of Russian brutality (which it contains as well), it moves beyond the normal, facile explanations of Russian behavior in the Caucasus.

Would the normal view of an expansionist Russian still account for the ways in which the first Chechen campaign was conducted? Only partly, and it would be wholly unsatisfying to stop there. To answer this question requires a deeper understanding of modern Russia than you would get from the traditional explanations coming from Conquest et. al.

What Lieven has done here is to capture more than the status on the ground. He has achieved the first real and complex portrait of the Russia of Boris Yeltsin, the Russian army in its post-Soviet incarnation, and one of the best examples of the kind of analysis that needs to be done on modern armies who must confront ancient societies.

I've never been so compelled to keep reading a book that made me cry so hard. Anne Nivat describes in horrifyingly matter-of-fact detail the innumerable ways in which this "Russian internal conflict" has devastated ordinary Chechen people and their land.

The Western (especially the American) press too often picks up on the Russian military's frequently espoused view that all Chechens are potentially violent rebels, and that one can't be too careful in dealing with them, because each one of them is a potential combatant. Through her descriptions of the numerous people she meets in her journeys through Chechen villages and cities, Ms. Nivat manages to bring home the idea that the Chechens, no matter how Russian government propaganda or Russian public opinion may portray them, are human beings like all of us. Even if you believe that the Russian government has the right or the need to gain military or political control over Chechnya, it's hard to believe after reading this book that this goal should be accomplished at the expense of the lives of thousands of ordinary human beings and the destruction of their homeland.

Anne Nivat deserves praise for risking her life to report all sides of the Chechen war. Although its obvious her heart lies with the Chechen civilian population, Nivat goes the extra mile to report on the war from not only the Chechen civilian perspective but also the Chechen rebel and even Russian points of view.

I read this book a week before I visited Chechnya (a few weeks after September 11th). Before heading to Russia I had a hard time believing some of Anne's accounts were true. After spending 4 days in the region, I have no doubts that everything she describes in this book is true. You must pay a bribe to get across the Kavkaz checkpoint and the trading of both people and corpses is widespread. I spent only four days in the region with ARMED bodyguards 24/7 and I was still scared for my personal safety. I can't imagine living for 6 months the way Anne did to cover this war.

If you are interested in Chechnya..especially the little reported 2nd war...this book is a must read.

With her powerful description of life on the frontlines and the backroads and rooms of Chechnya, Anne Nivat helps put a voice to this incredible conflict. Having worked in the Caucasus with Chechen refugees, I know her accounts to be real. My only complaint is that she tries to focus on too much and ends up glossing over some of the more interesting and horrifying aspects of the conflict. I remember standing by the office door and actually counting the Chechen staff on Monday mornings after their weekend journeys home...Anne Nivat's book reminds me why. Courage and the will to survive seem to be common traits in the Caucasus and it is a most humbling experience to read this book in the comfort of my home back in the US.

A thriller of international crisis and adventure, Peter O'Neill's Grey Wolves Howling builds a personal epic amidst the struggle of the Chechen people against the Russian empire.

It tracks Garyk Ivramovich Gadayev's personal life as he joins the Russian Army, fights and is wounded in Afghanistan, and joins with opposition forces in Russia and Chechnya. His nation and people crushed by the Russian invasion, he reaches out to the Muslim freedom fighters to plot a terrifying act of revenge.

Grey Wolves Howling is set against a background of regional history and current headlines, and is informed with a feeling for the bitterness and desperation of defeat. It transcends the typical thriller genre, of glamorous backgrounds and preset heroes and villains, to provide insight into the struggle of nationalism against a dying empire. And, oh yes, it does build to a shattering finale.

Thoroughly enjoy the story. Although a work of fiction, the setting, characters and story line give an all too chilling look at the world of the dissolving Soviet Union. It points out to me that our biggest dangers in the world today may not originate in the technologies in the US, but rather in the often times unpronouncable new countries of the world.

Highly recommend this work.

I knew relatively little about the Chechnya conflict prior to reading this book, and I found it to be a good introduction to the background and history of the Chechens and their relationship to greater Russia. I am an absolute amateur, and I didn't find the book to be ponderous or academic; at times it was actually quite thrilling. Dunlop seems to be sympathetic to the cause of the Chechen people, yet I found him to be pretty balanced in his analysis. Only problem I had was keeping straight all of the long Russian names, especially not knowing how to pronounce them...

This book goes into details about the Chechen-Russian conflict beginning with the original Russian expansion into the region. It talks about the religious, social, and economic factors involved in the Chechen conflict, as well as details on the traumatic depopulation of Chechnya in 1944 and the appropriation of the lands for other, more "loyal" peoples. A little repetitious at times and NOT for someone doing some light reading, but definitely a good book on the subject.

As of the writing of this book, the Chechnyans had successfully repelled the Russian army and achieved a de facto independence that was not recognized by the rest of the world. Subsequent events have shown that Russia was not through with Chechnya by a long shot. This is a fascinating and grusome account of how Russia first attempted to pacify its rebellious province and how the Chechnyan hatred of the Russians goes back well over a hundred years. Stalin deported the entire population of the area to Central Asia during World War Two, cementing the Checnyans hatred of Moscow. That the West has allowed the slaughter in Chechnya to continue without more than a peep of a protest is shameful. This is a compelling book that deserves a wider audience, as well as a sequel.

this book doesn't fail to tell the truth. This book tells the truth, the side not being told by the russians, or by the media. We all hear on the news about apartment bombings in russia, but we aren't told about the mass graves, about the genocide or the history of the chechen-russian conflict. Recent war crimes such as kidnapping and rape of underage chechen girls by russian generals don't make the news. the book provides an important historical context to the selected information we are given every day. This book may not be up to date, but history is very important to understanding the now. Things happen every day in chechnya.

The book doesn't fail to touch on the black market of chechnya, and how thugs took control in the aftermath of the devestation put upon them by the russians. You don't have to be a mujaheddin to read this book, or to like it. it is a comprehensive history of chechnya and the history of the conflict with voice given to those who are often not allowed the chance to speak in the international realm. I also highly recommend "chienne de guerre" for those who are interested in chechnya but aren't ready to swallow a history book full of dates and names.
Marsho!

I found this book an excellent survey of the causes, conduct, and results of the Chechen conflict. The only distracting item is that the authors switch from the third person to the first person,without any transition, when recalling interviews or situations while they were in Chechnya. This book is a must for students of contemporary history of Chechnya, Russia, and the Russian military's ineffectiveness in this conflict. This story is far from over and this book helps one understand how the Russians and the Chechens got to where they are today.

Politkovskaya has provided us an incredible insight into both sides of the ugliest conflict, both politically and moralistically, since the Second World War. Her ability to speak not only with the Russian OMON troops, the Russian military, and the Chechen "freedom fighters," as well as with the families of the dead from each side, provides the necessary balance and authority to make her book as intriguing as the people themselves.

Politkovskaya's political leanings are apparent within the first two chapters, but should not shade the information she provides. Crowfoot's translation, which on occasion slips from lyrical to Boris-and-Natasha-speak, appears a bit rushed; considering the threats made on Politkovskaya after her October suggestion that Russians were responsible for the deaths of high-ranking Putin advisors sent to the region to investigate federal operations there, a rush can be understood and appreciated. This complaint is, in my opinion, the only distraction from an otherwise outstanding piece of work.

Buy this book, and hope for another very soon!

I noticed that one reader feels this book is nothing but a bunch of lies...especially in the wake of September 11th. Unless you have been to Chechnya since September 11th (or even before) then I don't think you are qualified to write an accurate account of what's happening in that region. I was in Chechnya during the a few weeks after September 11th. I have seen firsthand the destruction. I have also witnessed the widespread suffering of the refugee civilian population in Ingushetia.

With that said, I admire Anna for her quest for the truth. Anna's bias for the Chechen population is obvious from the start. But, this book does contain accounts from the Russian point of view. Finally, Anna goes to great lengths to tell the reader the whole story by addressing the little reported Chechen warlord perspective. Chechnya is a dirty war and all three sides share part of the blame.

You may or may not agree with her reporting style or methods...but the book is an accurate representation of the events in Chechnya as they unfolded in the months her book covers. This book was a slow read in some spots but I would still recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about Chechnya.

I am looking forward to the next installment.

The book gives insight into the attrocities carried out in Chechnya by the Russian armed forces and also by some the Chechen rebels. It is a must-read for anyone who thinks that we live in a peaceful modern world, and that attrocitites carried out by great nations like Russia do not happen. It should serve as a serious reminder to the fact that Russia still denies foreign powers insight to their "internal affairs", and that the discrimination of Muslim minorities througout Central Asia is very much alive.

Especially nowadays, as Russia seeks to ally with the USA against Muslim aggressors, this book carries much weight.
As somebody noted: "If Tony Blair seeks to eliminate terrorism in Northern Ireland, he does not bomb Dublin to bits and pieces. So why does Putin obliterate Grozny in his fight against terrorists, killing tens and tens of thousands in his path?" That is certainly worth a thought.

There wasn't a whole lot of information about Chechnya involved here. I was really excited to come across a modern, fictional book involving Chechnya instead of a war chronicle or a Russian novel. So, I was a little disappointed on that level. The spy story was interesting although some of the geographic details on the Caucasus were a little off involving the capital cities and so on. The romance aspect was the main thread of the book in my opinion and should be emphasized for future recommendations. If you don't like romance, you may need to stick to war books to find out about Chechnya. My excitement over a book on Chechnya probably made me wipe out "romantic" from the title in my mind. On a technical note, there were more grammatical mistakes and misspellings than I have ever come across in a published book.

Cambridge scientist Sophie Ruskin is propelled into a world of espionage and intrigue when her father disappears on his way to an important advanced-technology conference. Adrian Vaughan, handsome, enigmatic, but haunted by his past, is assigned to train her as a spy to win her father's freedom, or destroy his work before his kidnappers can create the ultimate weapon. But Adrian's fate soon lies in Sophie's hands, as she travels across two continents to save his life, win his love, and fight for the freedom of the oppressed, war-torn Russian Republic of Chechnya.

A thrilling read from start to finish. I couldn't put the book down. It's got more twists and turns than a slippery eel. And as for the romantic bits, talk about sizzling! The heroine is gutsy and determined, a real modern woman, and as for the leading man! Wow! I sure wouldn't throw him out of my bed for eating crackers!

On a more serious note, the details of the struggle in the war-torn former Soviet republic are very well-researched. Ms. Stone's skill, experience, and dedication as a journalist are evident, though the facts are intermingled with a heavy leavening of clever artistic licence. This is one author to watch out for!

I agree with both Mr. Yin and Leonides. The premise of the book was good, but the book is heavily biased and ultimately unsatisfying if you are a serious student of this and related conflicts. The author admits that the Chenchens are proud, but somewhat thuggish, then goes on to praise how they cherish their knives while at the same time castigating the Russians for acting war-like. War is murderous and both sides in this book play at savagery. The author cannot praise one side and castigate the other - and contradicting himself on many pages - for the same characteristics; he loses all credibility.

And, let us not forget that Chechens are supporting Al-Qaida and related extremist,Islamic groups.

I highly recommend this book as a moving account of the wars in Chechnya and the only book to explore all the remote North Caucasus nations. Smith travels deeply among these little known, ancient peoples and in Chechnya he seems to have witnessed just about every major turning point in the first war.

Having enjoyed this book so much and also having read several others on Chechnya(Anatol Lieven, Carlotta Gall, Anna Politkovskaya) I was amazed by the uninformed review already on this site by a previous reader.

This reviewer says Smith is way too pro-Chechen and never shows the Chechens in a bad light, only the Russians. I found Smith was certainly showing sympathy for this people. But then as a people they are the ones hurting. Their capital Grozny, large parts of other towns, and many of the villages have been flattened by aerial bombardment and artillery. Maybe 100,000 people, probably far more (no one bothers counting anymore) have been killed out of the tiny population. Smith points out early on that the entire Chechen ethnic group is smaller than the Russian armed forces alone. Just think about that.

By concentrating on travels with the Chechen guerrillas, not Russian troops, Smith was able to see the frontlines and feel the same effects of war as the people living in the republic. Any journalist knows that trying to get information from a regular army, especially one committing war crimes, is unlikely to result in anything but lies. If Smith is wrong in believing the Chechen side to be suffering by far the greatest, then so is MSF, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the other western journalists who spent time there and wrote books about it (Lieven, Gall etc), not to mention the incredibly brave Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who is one of the very few to dare contradict her government's propaganda.

What has happened in Chechnya makes Kosovo pale in comparison and Milosovic is on trial for war crimes. Even in Bosnia the Serbs did not inflict such massive destruction - they didn't have half the Russian weaponry, after all. If Smith shows admiration for the Chechen guerrillas, then you do have to think about what he says he saw: a few thousand fighters with light infantry weapons tying down up to 100,000 Russian troops armed with helicopters, planes, tanks, artillery etc for several years.

I wonder if that reviewer even read the book. He/she says that the Chechens are not criticised, but on the first page I read Basayev was a terrorist and criminal AS WELL as being a hero to his own entourage. I read of a Chechen father trying to bury his son during a Russian air raid but cursing the Chechen guerrillas who had dragged him into the war. Etc, etc;

And as for there being no irony in writing about Aslan Maskhadov trying to prove he had a "regular" army by obstinately putting his men in unfavourable terrain against the Russian weapons, then that reviewer just doesn't get irony! What I read was just as he had announced this "apocalyptic" policy to Smith, an attack by Russian artillery started and Maskhadov (and Smith we suppose)had to run for their lives. Seems ironic to me.

Then there was some idea that history is given too much play in Allah's Mountains, the reviewer saying that to compare past Chechen-Russian relations so often to the present is like "comparing modern US-Mexican relations to US attempts to kill Pancho Villa".

Now this really IS ludicrous! Surely the whole point Smith was making, and it is one of the main points of the book, was that in a place like Chechnya the past really does sit very heavily on the present.

First you had brutal and long colonial conquest in the 19th century (Chechnya was about the hardest place to conquer in the whole Russian empire); then you moved straight into Soviet repression and Stalin's genocide in the 20th; then you went straight into the chaos and war of the post Soviet period. In other words there was never a moment when people might put the past behind or have any incentive to change their way of thinking. Conflict, conflict, that's all they know in Chechnya.

The reason it's important to understand this is that then you might have an inkling as to why against such ridiculous odds and at such a high price there are still today Chechens going out and blowing up Russian tanks.

Smith's book is excellent, extremely well written, Allah's mountains is an extraodinary moving report on an oppressed nation by a ruthless state

It seems fairly obvious that the two authors were in a rush to get this book out before the competition, since there is not much depth here, and more than a few typographical errors. One major annoyance was the spelling of commonly-accepted place- and proper names with the Lithuanian variant: confusing if you use other sources about the war.

This is basically a blow-by-blow of the war in Chechnya from December 94 to the end of 1996. While initially, I had hope for some insights, what I found was more of a chronology of the war, basically gleaned from Lithuanian (and some Russian) newspapers. Unfortunately, the preface triumphs this achievement as one that come to us through the "native" eyes of east Europeans, who are not subject to the bias of "western sources." What I found especially disappointing was the fact that the authors did not conduct one interview for the book (contrasting with the works of some supposedly "biased" Western journalists such as Carlotta Gall, who was actually IN Chechnya, and interviewed President Dudaev twice).

I don't mean to say that you have to actually be present in the war zone to write a good history of the war, but I simply did not see how Knezys and Sedlickas' book was all that original or insightful.

On the plus side, if you do not want to search for a chronology of the war in the internet, this may be useful - however, all of the Russian-language newspapers cited can be accessed by Westerners through FBIS.

This book was touted as an objective and evenhanded analysis of the military side of the Chechen war of 1994-96. It is simply not so. In fact it often reads like a propaganda pamphlet, pro-Chechen and anti-Russian in this case.

To give it a due credit, the book has some strong points. It is sufficiently detailed and provides a complete timeline of the conflict. Its analysis of war, while very partial, contains some interesting insights (for example, on the role of military terrorism). At the same time one of the book's drawback is highly derivative description of the events. It seems the authors have never been anywhere near Chechnya or interviewed main participants of this war. Instead they rely almost exclusively on reports written elsewhere - mainly in Russian and western newspapers (and also Lithuanian ones).

The authors begin with political circumstances leading to war. Like other parts of the book the description is very biased. They hardly mention, for example, a series of terrorist acts and hostage-taking (including several instances of kidnapping buses with schoolchildren) persisting in and around Chechnya in 1994, which was a final trigger for hostilities as lawlessness and violence in Chechnya has grown to intolerable proportions. Any western government in these circumstances would be just as hard pressed to "finally get tough on terrorists" as Russian government in the late 1994. Both sides, Russian and Chechen, can be faulted for gradual escalation and eventual stumbling into the brutal war. Much more objective and substantial take on this issue can be found in A. Lieven's "Chechnya: The Tombstone of Russian Power".

In describing the military side of the war S. Knezys and R. Sedlickas use many sketches and maps, with level of details sometimes down to individual vehicles destroyed or soldiers killed. These maps, however, often feel disconnected from the story and offer fairly little help in understanding combat situations. The narrative often resembles the language of a bureaucratic report. There is no comparison, for example, to the Mark Bowden's "Black Hawk Down" in vividness of describing gritty details of military engagements in a modern war. In fact, the writing reminds of Prussian pedantry that Lev Tolstoy mocked in "War and Peace": "First battalion marches..., second battalion marches...". Authors managed to make one of the most ferocious combats in recent history simply boring.

They also use very unconventional English transliteration of names and locations (based, it appears, on Lithuanian spelling). Not that the authors make even this consistent. For example, Yeltsin spelled as traditionally in English literature, while phonetically similar first letter in other names is spelled with "J" (e.g. Jegorov, or sometimes Jagorov). The authors are fairly sloppy and occasionally spell the same name differently within a single page (for example, Dudaev's wife name is alternately called Ala, Alla or Ada). One of the authors (Knezys) was educated in Soviet Union and surely has at least a basic grasp of Russian. Yet Russian names and places mentioned in the book often sound as if they are distorted on purpose to lose original meaning. Is it a quirky excursion into Luthuanian nationalism? There is nothing wrong with presenting the point of view of smaller nations, but distorting grammar and phonetics for this purpose looks downright silly.

Describing humanitarian aspects of the war authors detail almost all Russian atrocities ever mentioned in media, of various degree of credibility, but barely mention at all the Chechen ones, including well-documented horrible tortures and mutilation of captured Russian soldiers (and often civilians). They write, for example, how Chechens allegedly protected Russian POWs in the basement of Dudaev's presidential palace in Grozny, as Russian troops were storming it. What they don't mention is that Chechens fighters tied (and even nailed) many captured soldiers to windowsills, often stripped naked in January cold, while their snipers were shooting at attacking Russian troops using these prisoners as covers.

Almost every operation by Chechen forces is described as complete success from military point of view, while on Russian side - invariable bungling and failure. This is in line of how it was often portrayed in the media, but doesn't necessarily stand the scrutiny of common sense and logic (although Chechens indeed often proved to be very capable fighters). For example, authors describe Chechen attacks on parts of Gudermes in December '95 and of Grozny in March '96 as well-planned and perfectly successful "rehearsals" of the eventual operation to take Grozny in August '96, after which Russia decided to end the war and withdraw its troops. Despite being army officers, the authors apparently can't comprehend a simple concept: there is no such thing as a "repetition" of a military operation. In case a of pre-planned decisive strike, the army unit either completes its task, or fails at it and falls back to prepare and plan anew, with modified means and tactics, while the other side makes its own conclusions and designs countermeasures. Undoubtedly, had the Chechen army attack on Grozny in August '96 been not successful, they would have called it yet another "planned rehearsal", just as previous operations in December '95 and March '96. Similarly, they call terrorist raids on civilian targets inside Russia by the bands of field commanders Shamil Basaev in June '95 and Salman Raduev in December '95 (fully justified in author's description, even as these attacks included cold-blooded killing of civilian hostages) as total successes from military point of view. This is arguably the case for the first raid (Basaev's), but less likely for Raduev's band, which lost more than half of its fighters (Raduev was recently captured by Russian special forces and is now in prison).

Overall, the book is too flawed to receive a high mark. Nevertheless, it remains the most detailed military account of Chechen war in the western media, and can be recommended to readers interested in this subject.

I think in this book will be very good for the readers who want to know about 1994-96 chechnya war. Author show why russians does not win the war. The whole war is described quite precisious (as it can be:): battles, tactics, etc... And i think this book will be ok for readers who want to study 1999-x war.It will bring some answers to emerging questions in our days.