140×215 (60×90/16), hard cover, ill., 696 pp., 2006
ISBN 5-86793-406-3

Over the past hundred years, the cultural identity of the peoples of the Northern Caucasus has altered dramatically as a result of turbulent ethnopolitical change. In this book, attention is focused on ideas of antiquity and ethnogenesis of local peoples, as well as on the ideologies of the ethnopolitical movements of the Northern Caucasus. The identity of the Alan people is the subject of a special case study, as Shnirelman explores the Alans’ role in the ethnic consciousness of the inhabitants of the Northern Caucasus (the Ossetians, the Chechens, the Ingushis, the Karachayevans and the Balkarians). The book will be of interest to ethnologists, archaeologists, historians and political analysts and can be used as a source text for lectures on the history, ethnology and archaeology of the Northern Caucasus.

World rights available