What to Read on the Caucasus

“The Boston Marathon bombing this month sent people scrambling for maps and encyclopedias after it was revealed that the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were ethnic Chechens with ties to Dagestan and the North Caucasus. Although the full dimensions of the region’s role in the incident, if any, are uncertain, concerns about the area’s Islamist underground, nationalism, and security are perennial themes in Russian — and perhaps now American — politics.”