Dagestan: Russian Hegemony and Islamic Resistance in the North Caucasus

Ware (philosophy, Southern Illinois U.-Edwardsville), who conducted field research in the North Caucasus, and Dagestani sociologist Kisriev (Caucasian studies, Russian Academy of Sciences) analyze the tension between influences from the north and the south in a majority Muslim region that remained in the Russian Federation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a tension that overlies a far older tension between centralization and decentralization that many attribute to the mountainous terrain. Their topics include Islamic ideology as an antidote to Russian colonialism, the betrayal of Islam and construction of a Soviet ethnicity, ethnic accommodation in democratic Dagestan's constitutional djamaat, Islamic revival and radicalism, why Dagestanis fought to remain in Russia, Russian recentralization and Islamic resistance, and a gathering darkness. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)