With the region of the Caucasus with its ongoing, and even deteriorating, crisis and instability and its strategic and economic importance increasingly at the front of the world's attention, this volume presents and discusses some of the complexities and problems arising in the region such as Islamic terrorists and al-Qaida. Scholars from different disciplines who specialise in the Caucasus analyze key topics such as: discussions of grass root perceptions the influence of informal power structures on ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus Russian policies towards Islam and their destabilising influence the influence of Islamic revival on the legal and social situations nationalism and the revival of pre- and sub-national identities shifts in identity as reflected in demography reasons for the Chechen victory in the first Chechen war the involvement of Islamic volunteers inChechnya. With the situation in Chechnia likely to spread across the entire North Caucasus, this cutting edge work will be of great value in the near future and will interest political scientists and regional experts of Russia, Central Asia, Caucasus, Middle East and Turkey, as well as NGOs, government agencies and think tanks.