Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia

by Donald Rayfield

Overview

Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, Georgia is a country of rainforests and swamps, snow and glaciers, and semi-arid plains. It has ski resorts and mineral springs, monuments and an oil pipeline. It also has one of the longest and most turbulent histories in the Christian or Near Eastern world, but no comprehensive, up-to-date account has been written about this little-known country—until now. Remedying this omission, Donald Rayfield accesses a mass of new material from recently opened archives to tell Georgia’s absorbing story.

Beginning with the first intimations of the existence of Georgians in ancient Anatolia and ending with the volatile presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, Rayfield deals with the country’s internal politics and swings between disintegration and unity, and divulges Georgia’s complex struggles with the empires that have tried to control, fragment, or even destroy it. He describes the country’s conflicts with Xenophon’s Greeks, Arabs, invading Turks, the Crusades, Genghis Khan, the Persian Empire, the Russian Empire, and Soviet totalitarianism. A wide-ranging examination of this small but colorful country, its dramatic state-building, and its tragic political mistakes, Edge of Empires draws our eyes to this often overlooked nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780230306
Publisher:	Reaktion Books, Limited
Publication date:	12/15/2012
Pages:	479
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Donald Rayfield is professor emeritus of Russian and Georgian in the Department of Russian, Queen Mary, University of London. Among his many books, he is the author of The Literature of Georgia: A History and Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him as well as editor-in-chief of the immense Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

1 The Emergence of the Kartvelians 11

2 The Origins of the Kingdom of Kartli 22

3 Conversion 38

4 The Arab Conquest 55

5 Unification 73

6 Davit the Builder 85

7 Demetre and Giorgi III 98

8 Queen Tamar 107

9 Mongol Invasion 118

10 The Fractured State 132

11 Timur Lang and the Destruction of Georgia 147

12 Fratricide 164

13 King Teimuraz I 187

14 Teimuraz Dispossessed 207

15 The Eighteenth Century 222

16 The Russian Conquest of Kartli-Kakhetia 250

17 King Solomon's End 265

18 Vice-regency 284

19 Reaction and Revolution 306

20 Independence 323

21 Soviet Annexation 339

22 After Stalin 366

23 Independence Restored 381

References 402

Chronology 417

Maps and Dynastic Trees 426

Select Bibliography 446

Photo Acknowledgements 447

Index 449

Editorial Reviews

[An] ambitious and comprehensive history of a complex country. . . . Rayfield’s powerful theme is of brief periods of prosperity and security, ended by invasion, conquest, looting and despoliation.

Economist

2013 Outstanding Academic Title

Choice magazine

 “The most comprehensive and up-to-date history of Georgia available in English. This tour de force explains why the small south Caucasus nation looks longingly to the west. A work of consummate erudition from Britain’s foremost expert on Georgian history and literature.

" Financial Times "Books of the Year

“[An] ambitious and comprehensive history of a complex country. . . . Mr. Rayfield’s powerful theme is of brief periods of prosperity and security, ended by invasion, conquest, looting and despoliation.”

The Economist

“Donald Rayfield’s panoramic Edge of Empires is an impressive work that helps us understand why this south Caucasus nation of 6.4m people lodged in a hostile and unstable neighbourhood looks so longingly to the West. . . . Edge of Empires is the most wide-ranging and reliable history of Georgia one is likely to find for many years to come.”

Financial Times Tony Barber

 “The most comprehensive and up-to-date history of Georgia available in English. This tour de force explains why the small south Caucasus nation looks longingly to the west. A work of consummate erudition from Britain’s foremost expert on Georgian history and literature.”

"Books of the Year

[An] ambitious and comprehensive history of a complex country. . . . Rayfield’s powerful theme is of brief periods of prosperity and security, ended by invasion, conquest, looting and despoliation.

Economist

This is a valuable work on a country that has not generally received sufficient attention in the literature. Rayfield, an expert on the twentieth century, is an excellent choice for the volume.

European Review of History

Basing his account on Georgian Chronicles, secondary literature, and archival materials as well as his in-depth knowledge of Georgian language and literature, Rayfield unleashes a whirlwind of battles, victories and defeats, invasions and annexations, dynastic arrangements, political shenanigans, and social and cultural changes . . . accompanied by a helpful chronology, detailed maps, and dynastic tables.

Times Literary Supplement

This book will fascinate anyone interested in the turbulent, tangled past of the Georgians.

Reviews in History

Rayfield begins with archaeology and finishes with the upheavals of 2012. Breathtaking and breathless, his book is the equivalent of watching Shakespeare’s history plays in fast-forward mode or being put on the back of a Georgian steed and charged across the mountains of Khevsureti at daredevil speed.

International Affairs

Rayfield’s Edge of Empires is a wonderful history of Georgia, lifting the lid on that country's torrid, rambunctious past (and present). Impeccably researched, limpidly written, and full of insight.

Guardian, "Books of the Year" - William Boyd

Rayfield’s panoramic Edge of Empires is an impressive work that helps us understand why this south Caucasus nation of 6.4m people lodged in a hostile and unstable neighborhood looks so longingly to the West. . . . Edge of Empires is the most wide-ranging and reliable history of Georgia one is likely to find for many years to come.

Financial Times

"Rayfield’s work will serve as the reference text for the study of Georgian history in the English-speaking world for a long time. No truly comparable book, one that begins with Georgia’s emergence from legend into history and ends with an examination of the present Georgian dream government, exists in Western scholarship."

Asian Affairs

Rayfield offers the most comprehensive and detailed survey history of the country of Georgia to date. Although David Marshall Lang (1962), William Edward David Allen (1932), Kalistrat Salia (1983), and Ronald Grigor Suny (1989) have all written survey histories of Georgia in the past, Rayfield’s is the only one that takes readers from the region’s prehistory all the way up to recent demonstrations in 2011 against Georgia’s current government under Mikheil Saakashvili. . . . An excellent and indispensable reference for libraries, students, researchers, and general readers. Essential.

Choice

Rayfield is the English-speaking world’s incomparable guide to Georgia’s language, literature, and history. He revels in its fascinating complexities and, as we read him, so do we.

Thomas de Waal

This is a courageous book. In four hundred pages or so, the author attempts to chronicle the history of Georgia and Georgians over two millennia, bringing us in its final chapter to the closing years of the Saakashvili era in 2009-10. There is no doubt that Rayfield is the man to tackle this task, a linguist and historian who speaks Georgian and has studied its culture and politics for over three decades. The text is bright, straightforward, and speckled with irony and humor. . . . Rayfield takes us through two thousand years of Georgian history with pace and efficiency.

Slavonic and Eastern European Review

The most comprehensive and up-to-date history of Georgia available in English. This tour de force explains why the small south Caucasus nation looks longingly to the west. A work of consummate erudition from Britain’s foremost expert on Georgian history and literature.

Financial Times, "Books of the Year" - Tony Barber

Won

Choice Magazine: CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Awards

In [his] depth and attention to detail of more or less the whole of recorded Georgian history, Rayfield has produced the definitive one-volume work.

European History Quarterly

“Rayfield’s panoramic Edge of Empires is an impressive work that helps us understand why this south Caucasus nation of 6.4m people lodged in a hostile and unstable neighborhood looks so longingly to the West. . . . Edge of Empires is the most wide-ranging and reliable history of Georgia one is likely to find for many years to come.

Financial Times

The most comprehensive and up-to-date history of Georgia available in English. This tour de force explains why the small south Caucasus nation looks longingly to the west. A work of consummate erudition from Britain’s foremost expert on Georgian history and literature.

"Books of the Year" Financial Times