Rating: 
Summary: Great Great Great
Review: All I have to say is that he was in an overloaded helicopter escaping from a soon-to-be overrun village and they cleared a mountain pass by 5 feet. Insanely good book about the part of the world I'd most like to visit.Plus, my professor met him in a bar in Tiflis.
Rating:
Summary: Great Great Great
Review: All I have to say is that he was in an overloaded helicopter escaping from a soon-to-be overrun village and they cleared a mountain pass by 5 feet. Insanely good book about the part of the world I'd most like to visit. Plus, my professor met him in a bar in Tiflis.
Rating:
Summary: must read
Review: An incredibly interesting book about the South Caucasian war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. No any other author can claim more accuracy of description of events during that time. Goltz's record of the events will for sure be used by future historians as a source for reference.
This book made me to think seriously over the Khojali massacre where hundreds of Azeri civilians were murdered by Armenians. Without Goltz, the world would be unaware of this crime against humanity.
The author does not use any warmonger rhetoric, rather advocating for the peace in the region. I was told by my Armenian friend that he does not like the book, yet admitting that the book provides correct insight of the war and other events.
Highly recommended for those who want to know little bit about the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Rating:
Summary: Must read!
Review: Finally we got very honest and truthful book about Karabakh conflict from a person who have seen it himself.
P.S. It's really funny to see how armenians try to trash this book just because it ruins their myths and lies :)
Rating:
Summary: Amazingly accurate book
Review: Finally, a writer who is not afraid to tell the truth. If you listen to all the pro-Armenian propoganda, you would think that all Azeris are monsters. The book does an excellent job in exposing the real truth behind the conflict. It shows you the real horror, aggression, unbelievable violence Azeris had to go through. The chapters brought me to tears and made me remember all the horrors I saw and experienced first hand. The images of little children lying lifeless, old people burned to death with fingers cut up are just some of the things I have to live with my whole life. Years have passed but I still haven't recovered from all the horror and cruelty I saw back when I was a child. If just one person can learn the real truth from reading this book, I'll know my struggles were not in vain. God bless the United States and God bless Azerbaijan. My heart goes out to all who suffered.
Rating: 
Summary: For a good laugh
Review: I don't know what I was thinking when I bought a history book written by a journalist, but I certainly got what I deserved.
Rating:
Summary: You stupid people...
Review: I met "Tommy" Goltz at a dinner party in DC, where he was arrogant enough to admit he accepted some money for the creation of this book from the Azerbaijan lobby of USA. Maybe that's your idea of objective reporting, but it's not mine. If you are eager to have your most tender heart-strings pulled along by a hack writer who thinks he knows the ins and outs of a history far more complex than his cartoon-style can grasp, this is a book just for you.
Rating:
Summary: Big lies by Thomas Goltz
Review: This book is a completely bias/one-sided perception of the events in and around Nagorno-Karabagh. How can Karabagh be claimed by Azerbaijan when it contains CENTURIES old churches and artifacts Armenian in orgin present till TODAY! He neglects to mention the massacres of Sumgait, Baku, Shushi, Kirovabad, Maragha, and Stepanakert where hundreds of Armenian men, women, and children were beaten, raped, and burned alive. Goltz has even lobbied in Congress for Azerbaijan, opposing Section 907(1992) which "condemned the human rights violations by the Azeri's." On November 20, 2003 (today) Goltz hosted a lecture at the University of CA in Irvine and was swarmed by questions after the lecture that exposed the contradictions in his book, the holes in his assertions, and his omissions of key historical insight. He was only able to dodge the questions before he left the lecture hall with an audience still present. THOMAS GOLTZ IS AZERBAIJAN'S AND TURKEY'S POLITICAL PUPPET!
Rating: 
Summary: Eyewitness reporting of the post-Soviet aftermath
Review: Thomas Goltz spent six years as a reporter in and around Azerbaijan, starting in 1991. He saw the collapse of the USSR and the start of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, and filed many war-zone reports. The result is fascinating, though a little uneven in places: Goltz is a fine war reporter, but not the best historiographer in the world. Despite the title, the book is not quite a diary, although there is a good detail of day-to-day detail about life in Azerbaijan (he spent most of his time in Baku). The book's two main foci are the political history of Azerbaijan during this period, and the conflict with Armenia. The political history is done very well -- Goltz introduces a large cast, keeps them fairly distinct, and through his personal acquaintance with almost all of them brings them to life. It's clear that Goltz acquired a good deal of affection for the Azerbaijanis, and he is enraged by the corruption and indifference of many of the Azerbaijan political class. When, in the end, the old Soviet-era fox Heydar Aliyev wins power and actually gets the Caspian oil (and concomitant money) to flow via deals with international oil companies, Goltz is grudgingly respectful -- Aliyev may be lying about his democratic credentials, but he did achieve some benefit to Azerbaijan, which is more than most of his predecessors did. As I said, Goltz is fond of the Azerbaijanis, and this does come through in his reporting of the war, which as a result feels a little less even-handed. There's no doubt about the accuracy of his central complaint, often-repeated: that the Armenians, apparently with Russian help, were directly involved in the Karabakh conflict, despite all their claims that it was mere "volunteerism"; and that the media has generally been much kinder to the Armenians than they deserve. He is also scathing about the Azerbaijan military's incompetence and corruption; and he finds the time to make positive comments about Armenia, though he spent relatively little time there. Still, he is pro-Azeri, and it occasionally shows. The blurb urges you to read this for the adventure if you're not interested in the politics or history, and there are certainly some scary moments as Goltz barely makes it out of some of the more dangerous places alive. But I can't recommend it for that alone. If you like politics and history, this is a great source on Azerbaijan in the 90's; it's not great writing but it's interesting and has details you won't find anywhere else.
Rating:
Summary: The best coverage of Karabakh conflict
Review: Twice during the recent years, in 1992 and in 1994, I visited Azerbaijan with a group of other French journalists. All I have heard about this country was the war in Karabakh and oil reserves. I was biased, filled with pro-Armenian information typical to most of the Western media. However, the truth I found, from first hands, eyewitnesses, people who experienced the horrors of that bloody conflict changed my view by 180 degrees. I think the author of this book, Thomas Goltz, underwent the same experience as I did. In fact, Armenia proved to be the aggressor, Azerbaijan was the victim! The crimes of Armenian military units against Azerbaijani women, children, elderly can not be described in any human language. Dead bodies were mutilated, eyes pierced, ears torn, people were burned alive. I know that because I have seen the pictures and actually visited the sites of these massacres. And I am grateful to Thomas Goltz that he made sure the world knows about the truth. Particularly, the chapter of the book concerning Khodjali massacre deserve a special recognition. Who were those Armenian militants, what did they want? They were so-called "freedom fighters", their desire was to create "Great Armenia", "Black Sea to Caspian", "to clean Caucasus from Azeri Turks' (i.e. Azerbaijanis). They were armed by Russian weapons and ideological fiction of Armenian "historians" which completely ignored the facts and rewrote the entire history of the region. Their idea was about the "supreme", "most ancient" Armenian nation which has a "historical right" to take back "its lands", by killing, raping destroying everybody on its way. And that is how the Karabakh war started. Ironically, this ancient Azerbaijani land now invaded by Armenian military was the home for most of Azerbaijani poets, writers, musicians. There is no credible record in the history that Karabakh ever belonged to Armenia. Even the ancient churches in there were built by Caucasian Albanians, the Christian ancestors of modern Muslim Azerbaijanis. The first Armenians moved there only 150 years ago, supported by Russian Empire. Anyway, it is sad that Thomas Goltz is one of the few reporters who had enough courage to write the truth about this region. The conflict is still not finished, and Azerbaijan is still subject to illegal Armenian occupation on the verge of 21st century. The country with huge oil reserves and strategic interests of the West is also a constant subject of Russian political-economical attack. Unfortunately, century long propaganda machine of Armenia managed to mislead the world and hide the crimes committed against Azerbaijani population of Karabakh and other lands invaded by Armenians.
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