Rating: 
Summary: Stunning!
Review: A very brave woman in a very sad place. This book will take you as close to that place as you'll want to be, and in the process burn through the foggy reporting so typical of the American media accounts of the war in Chechnya.
Rating:
Summary: Accurate Account of Chechen War
Review: Anne Nivat deserves praise for risking her life to report all sides of the Chechen war. Although its obvious her heart lies with the Chechen civilian population, Nivat goes the extra mile to report on the war from not only the Chechen civilian perspective but also the Chechen rebel and even Russian points of view.I read this book a week before I visited Chechnya (a few weeks after September 11th). Before heading to Russia I had a hard time believing some of Anne's accounts were true. After spending 4 days in the region, I have no doubts that everything she describes in this book is true. You must pay a bribe to get across the Kavkaz checkpoint and the trading of both people and corpses is widespread. I spent only four days in the region with ARMED bodyguards 24/7 and I was still scared for my personal safety. I can't imagine living for 6 months the way Anne did to cover this war. If you are interested in Chechnya..especially the little reported 2nd war...this book is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Anne Nivat is exceptionally brilliant and courageous writer. I was amazed to read how she would go again and again into Chechnya and cover it from the side which hardly gets any media attention. Although she is sympathetic to Chechens in general, she seems to be mildly hostile to Chechen leaders. She should realize that its Chechens who have chosen their leaders and sometimes the civilians might be angry at them but that is because of the stress they are going through and it is not the general opinion. Chechens still consider the fighters as their heroes no matter what faction they belong to. In the end, Anne Nivat deserves cheers from everyone.
Rating:
Summary: UNE GUERRE TERRIBLE!!!
Review: Before there was "Operation Iraqi Freedom", there was the war in Chechnya. A war that the Russians try to disguise as an insurrection. A war that could easily have been avoided if Moscow had simply given Chechnya the sovereignty it sought in the early 1990s. Here in this book, Anne Nivat shows both the horrors and absurdities of the Chechnyan War. Like the other reviewers, I commend Mlle. Nivat for her courage in going out on her own into Chechnya to get at the heart of the story. Anne Nivat is a gutsy woman. Her story is all the more remarkable and sobering given the efforts of Moscow to censure the news reportage from Chechnya. Being a fluent speaker of Russian also allowed Nivat to form personal bonds with many of the people she met. Thus, the reader gets a more intimate insight into the daily perils people face in Chechnya.
Rating:
Summary: UNE GUERRE TERRIBLE!!!
Review: Before there was "Operation Iraqi Freedom", there was the war in Chechnya. A war that the Russians try to disguise as an insurrection. A war that could easily have been avoided if Moscow had simply given Chechnya the sovereignty it sought in the early 1990s. Here in this book, Anne Nivat shows both the horrors and absurdities of the Chechnyan War. Like the other reviewers, I commend Mlle. Nivat for her courage in going out on her own into Chechnya to get at the heart of the story. Anne Nivat is a gutsy woman. Her story is all the more remarkable and sobering given the efforts of Moscow to censure the news reportage from Chechnya. Being a fluent speaker of Russian also allowed Nivat to form personal bonds with many of the people she met. Thus, the reader gets a more intimate insight into the daily perils people face in Chechnya.
Rating:
Summary: UNE GUERRE TERRIBLE!!!
Review: Before there was "Operation Iraqi Freedom", there was the war in Chechnya. A war that the Russians try to disguise as an insurrection. A war that could easily have been avoided if Moscow had simply given Chechnya the sovereignty it sought in the early 1990s. Here in this book, Anne Nivat shows both the horrors and absurdities of the Chechnyan War. Like the other reviewers, I commend Mlle. Nivat for her courage in going out on her own into Chechnya to get at the heart of the story. Anne Nivat is a gutsy woman. Her story is all the more remarkable and sobering given the efforts of Moscow to censure the news reportage from Chechnya. Being a fluent speaker of Russian also allowed Nivat to form personal bonds with many of the people she met. Thus, the reader gets a more intimate insight into the daily perils people face in Chechnya.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes arguements and refuses them at the same time.
Review: I must agree with Kirill's review of the book. I will add a few things of course, First there are two main groups in Chechnya, The Russo-Chechens and the Wahabbis. Wahabbis are Muslims who live by the strict code of the sharia, this can be drawn on the same level as the Taliban in Afghanistan. The difference here is that the Wahabbis came into Chechnya in the early 1990s, at the weakest time of Russian change from Communism to Democracy. Led by Shamil Basayev the 94-96 was fought for an independent Chechnya, by the "people" which consisted of many pride filled Chechens and some Wahabbis. After the first war, Wahabbism spread throught and no clear leadership was established, It looked as if Wahabbis the gun toting Chechens that threatened the population to do as they wanted would take control. This would once again establish the same rule as the Taliban in Afghanistan. But they blew their chance for becoming an independent state, and started making raids into nearby Russian Teritories, leading up to the apartment buildings in Moscow. The Russians did what nobody did to the Taliban when they took control of Afghanistan. So this leads us to the point in the book, the Invasion of Chechnya, battles for Grozny. The book was written in 1999-2001, it is now 2002 and the situation has, changed, Reconstruction has begun of schools, administrations, and apartment buildins to restore life to normal. For once in the last 10 years, Chechnya is getting money from the Russian Federation to rebuild, the outlook is bright. If this doesnt draw parallels with US-Afghanistan, I dont know what does.
Rating:
Summary: Say hell-low to everyone you meet.
Review: I was randomly searching when I hit C-Span a few weekends ago. "Book TV" was cycling through, as usual, and I lucked upon video of Anne Nivat. I may not have kept watching, but I heard the word "Chechnya." This made me pause and try to catch up with what she was saying. I'm currently in a politics mode. This issue is one of the ones that any political being on this planet now needs to be interested in. We're talking about the first civil war in a fully nuclearized country. Although the Russians go for the minimal truth spreading and merely assert that they're engaging some terrorists. But, in the postconscious tradition, their engagement is of a quite detached variety. They mostly bomb population centers. Their bombs have no problem killing innocents, while the innocent victims have large problems getting acceptable medical help. What if the normal people want to leave and seek peace elsewhere? The Russians at one point decide to not let anyone else leave, after a large amount of refugees escape to miserable conditions in neighboring country. And the people in the parts of Chechnya that Russians have "liberated" discover the Russian whimsy may be to just continue bombing them. Why is this happening? Independence? Money? Religion? No one knows for sure, and as Anne said on TV, It's a lot easier to start a war than it is to stop one. A linked book is Franklin's _Vietnam and Other American Fantasies_. The issues are a bit more complex than the "consensus trance" leads us to beleive. Where is this world going? I don't know about you, but I'm going to die. Due to white middle-class male luck, my life before death will probably be better than the norm for humanity these days. Although I smoked pot for five years, without knowing it has many of the same carcinogens as tobacco. I may have killed myself. I'm not happy about it. Anne Nivat came close to death, and took her chances to visit hell and tell us about it.
Rating:
Summary: Chechnya: The Overlooked War
Review: I've never been so compelled to keep reading a book that made me cry so hard. Anne Nivat describes in horrifyingly matter-of-fact detail the innumerable ways in which this "Russian internal conflict" has devastated ordinary Chechen people and their land. The Western (especially the American) press too often picks up on the Russian military's frequently espoused view that all Chechens are potentially violent rebels, and that one can't be too careful in dealing with them, because each one of them is a potential combatant. Through her descriptions of the numerous people she meets in her journeys through Chechen villages and cities, Ms. Nivat manages to bring home the idea that the Chechens, no matter how Russian government propaganda or Russian public opinion may portray them, are human beings like all of us. Even if you believe that the Russian government has the right or the need to gain military or political control over Chechnya, it's hard to believe after reading this book that this goal should be accomplished at the expense of the lives of thousands of ordinary human beings and the destruction of their homeland.
Rating:
Summary: Chechnya: The Overlooked War
Review: I've never been so compelled to keep reading a book that made me cry so hard. Anne Nivat describes in horrifyingly matter-of-fact detail the innumerable ways in which this "Russian internal conflict" has devastated ordinary Chechen people and their land. The Western (especially the American) press too often picks up on the Russian military's frequently espoused view that all Chechens are potentially violent rebels, and that one can't be too careful in dealing with them, because each one of them is a potential combatant. Through her descriptions of the numerous people she meets in her journeys through Chechen villages and cities, Ms. Nivat manages to bring home the idea that the Chechens, no matter how Russian government propaganda or Russian public opinion may portray them, are human beings like all of us. Even if you believe that the Russian government has the right or the need to gain military or political control over Chechnya, it's hard to believe after reading this book that this goal should be accomplished at the expense of the lives of thousands of ordinary human beings and the destruction of their homeland.
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