Cossacks! It"s one of those magical, exotic words from distant memories, conjuring up vague but potent images of dashing horsemen, ruthless warriors, terrifying enemies. But the Cossacks are not merely the stuff of a dimming history. Since the fall of the USSR, Cossack organisations have been flourishing across its former territories; there are university departments for the study of Cossack history and customs and summer camps devoted to training aspiring young Cossacks in the ancient chivalric (or more cynically, military) skills. In the last decade, Cossack reservists have appeared in military trouble-spots: Krasnodar, Moldova, North Ossetia, Bosnia (assisting their Serbian "brethren"), Tajikistan and Chechenia. No matter how contrived the Cossack renaissance might be, it"s for real and for many it"s deeply alarming. John Ure is a retired diplomat who knows the region, the history and how to convey that knowledge elegantly and economically. One of the old school, he knows a good story when he sees it--and the Cossacks have good stories in spades. Ure details this elusive tribe"s sometimes bewilderingly inconsistent history--one year, feared rebels of the Tsarist state; the next, ruthless enforcers of the Tsarist status quo-- through their repression under Stalin, to their ongoing re-emergence. As with so many of the world"s current political situations, grasping the history is everything (or it"s certainly alleged to be) and The Cossacksbrings us a step nearer to understanding one enduring, and still growing, legend. --Alan Stewart