As Marc Jansen points out in his introduction to this short (150 pages plus notes) history, Georgia has some strong claims in the "earthly paradise" stakes: beautiful landscape, fertile valleys, a gentle climate, and a culture based around five-hour lunches. And the second-longest Christian tradition in the world (it adopted Christianity just a few years after Armenia).

Unfortunately, it soon turns out that Georgia has also faced some pretty tough historical challenges, in the shape of large, aggressive neighbours. Rome/Byzantium/Ottoman Turkey in the west, Persia, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane in the East, and since the 18th century, Russia in the north. Georgian culture has only really been able to flourish in the periods when one or more of these neighbours was weak or distracted elsewhere, as it did during the "golden age" of the 11th century. At other times the country has often been weak, split into rival principalities that became clients of the big neighbours.

Most of us would have trouble naming any famous Georgians apart from Stalin, Beria, and maybe Eduard Shevardnadze. None of them exactly role-models, unfortunately. Jansen devotes plenty of space to Georgia's history since the Russian revolution: the brief period of independence under the Mensheviks, absorption by the new Bolshevik state and creation of the Georgian SSR, Stalin's rise to power, the terror of the thirties and forties, varying degrees of regional autonomy under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, and then the chaos that followed the dissolution of the USSR.

As in quite a few other newly-independent territories, the first politicians who jumped on the box after Moscow let the reins go were nationalists (naive, or cynical and opportunistic: take your pick) who gained popular support by picking on minorities. In Georgia's case, the perceived threat to the non-Georgian Abkhazians and South Ossetians led to unrest and civil war that gave Russia an excuse to occupy both regions and set them up as supposedly independent states, not recognised by the UN. Which of course conveniently weakens Georgia and has left it with a legacy of political instability and difficult relations with neighbours. Not ideal for a country whose economy depends mostly on agricultural exports (and the fees it earns by transporting oil and gas across its territory).

A very interesting introduction to a country I didn't know much about. ( )