“A thousand years after the Arab geographer of the 10th century. Al-Masuzi, who discouragedly called the Caucasus the “Mountain of Languages,” experts of various profiles are still trying to count and understand the exotic diversity of the region. In contrast, Derlugyan—himself a native of the region, now working in America—overcomes exoticization and consistently inserts the Caucasus into the global context. Analytically accurately using the rather broad categories of social capital and subproletariat taken from Bourdieu, he shows exactly how the demographic cocktail of the local opposition intelligentsia and uneducated active youth who remained outside the system exploded, and how the power of the Soviet Leviathan collapsed.”