"In the beautiful hills of the Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan are still locked in a quarrel that has blighted the entire region between Russia and Iran, the Black and the Caspian Seas. The dispute over Nagorny Karabakh made the first tears in the fabric of Gorbachev's Soviet Union in 1988 and so can lay claim to ending the Soviet empire.

In 1991-94 it became the first interstate war in the former USSR, leading to twenty thousand deaths and one of the biggest refugee flows of modern times, with more than a million people still displaced from their homes.".

"In Black Garden, Thomas de Waal tells the full story of this tragic quarrel and its aftermath for the first time. He travels the length and breadth of Armenia and Azerbaijan, talking to veterans, refugees and the inhabitants of ruined towns and villages. He recreates the story of the descent into conflict of two former Soviet neighbors, its disastrous consequences and the confused efforts of the "Great Powers" - Russia, France and the United states - to bring peace to the Caucasus."--BOOK JACKET.