Babak Rezvani’s Ethno-Territorial Conflict and Coexistence in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Fereydan (2013) and his Conflict and Peace in Central Eurasia—Towards Explanations and Understandings (2015), an updated, shortened and improved version of the former book (e.g. more clearly presented maps and figures in the latter book), constitute notable, highly relevant additions to the field of conflict studies in particular. Similar to Monica Toft’s Geography of Ethnic Violence (2005), Rezvani also pays attention to the geography of ethnic conflicts, and includes new geographic variables into his analyses. An abbreviated and modified version of this review essay, which exclusively focuses on Rezvani's 2015 book and elaborates on methodological aspects of his research, will be published in the peer-reviewed journal Nationalism and Ethnic Politics (Routledge) sometime this year. NB: citations and other references from each of the books under review are indicated by its year of publication and the relevant page numbers, e.g. '(2013: p.1)' , '(2015: p.100)' , etcetera. These references are different in format than the other source references in this review essay.

Many post-colonial, post-communist and/or (other) post-separatist societies in the world today are in a perilous state, even if they do not face war or other forms of armed conflict and (political) violence or have not suffered such ills in recent years or decades. Too many of these societies within or across countries with recognized borders are still or at best in a fragile, even doubtful stage of formal transition—let alone true transformation—toward post-conflict, post-separatist (whether the separatist project is successful or not) societies with even minimal levels of democracy, pluralism and socio-economic wealth and wellbeing i.e. development. This troubling state of affairs is of the highest importance to the multidisciplinary field of ethnogeopolitics, if only because most if not all of these societies are conflict-ridden, tense, poverty-stricken, corrupt or otherwise underdeveloped because of historically grown and recently aggravated animosities between ethnic groups. I believe this to generally hold true, even if have cautioned elsewhere that “one should not presume that all internal conflicts, or even all conflicts per se, are ethnic in character depending on one’s definition of ethnicity” (Ten Dam 2015c: 14).

An urban biography, Brody: A Galician Border City in the Long Nineteenth Century reconciles 150 years of the town's socioeconomic history with its cultural memory. The first comprehensive study of this city under Habsburg-Austrian rule, Börries Kuzmany advises against reading urban history solely through the national lens. Besides exploring Brody's extraordinary ethno-confessional structure—Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians—Kuzmany examines the interrelation between the city's geographical location at the imperial border, its standing as a key commercial hub in East-Central Europe, and its position as a major springboard for the dissemination of the Haskalah in Galicia and the Russian Empire. After delving into the contradictory perceptions of Brody in travelogues, fiction and memory books, Kuzmany uses contemporary and historical photographs to provide an illustrated walking tour of this now Ukrainian town.

What brutalises rebels? What makes them cruel, or makes them do things that we consider cruel and immoral? That is a primary question of my research on rebels and rebellion, i.e. the “violent opposition to the ruler, government regime[,] or state for any personal, collective or ideological purpose” (Ten Dam 2015a: 6 (quote),15). Arguably, rebels or insurgents are the most important and dominant kind of armed non-state actors. After all, without rebels, no rebellions. The question of brutalisation—which can be put to all kinds of armed actors—is of prime importance to the field of conflict studies in general and to the “emerging multidisciplinary field” of ethnogeopolitics (Rezvani 2013a: 4) in particular. NB: This article is an updated, expanded and improved version of the article by the same author that appeared in the Autumn 2015 issue of this journal titled ‘Looking at Conflict Patterns: Declining Frequencies yet Persistent Brutalities in both Ethnic and Non-Ethnic Conflicts’ (Vol 3. No.2, pp.9-23), partially in response to the two Critical Responses i.e. open peer-reviews in the same issue (Ibid, pp.24-25).

We are happy to announce the third and last issue of our journal this year. This is the first Special Issue of our journal, on the theme of Human Security (HS)—with contributions applying new and improved HS concepts and approaches to the South Caucasus as a whole or some countries and/or (border) regions within it. The contributions are by young and aspiring scholars who already have made a track record in academia: Dr. Jason E. Strakes, Huseyn Aliyev and Anastasia Shesterinina. Their affiliations, areas of expertise and contact details can be found at the end of their articles. Dr. Françoise Companjen, who came to know our Association for the Study of EthnoGeoPolitics (EGP) and had read some of the issues of our journal Forum of EthnoGeoPolitics, approached us early this year with the proposal for a special issue on HS, in which she would be the Guest Editor and provide an Introductory article to the contributions (see the end of her article for her background and expertise as well). Dr. Abel Polese already had reviewed the early versions of the contributions, and was willing to write a(nother) peer review as an open Critical Response to their final versions. We also found a second peer-reviewer willing to publish his comments on the contributions as a Critical Response: Dr. Jonathan Otto Pohl, who already has contributed with a major article on the Caucasus in the Spring 2015 issue of our journal.

What brutalises rebels? What makes them cruel, or makes them do things that we consider cruel and immoral? That is a primary question—which can be put to all kinds of armed actors—of my research on rebels and rebellion, i.e. the “violent opposition to the ruler, government regime[,] or state for any personal, collective or ideological purpose” (Ten Dam 2015a: 6 (quote), 15). Arguably, rebels or insurgents are the most important and dominant kind of armed non-state actors. After all, without rebels, no rebellions. The question of brutalisation i.e. increasing resort to violence that violates local and/or international norms—that I hold are ultimately based on conscience, empathy and honour (Ten Dam 2014: 8-9)—is of prime importance to the field of conflict studies in general and to the “emerging multidisciplinary field” of ethnogeopolitics (Rezvani 2013: 4) in particular.1 Apparently, most conflicts are internal, insurgent, ethnic and separatist in nature, and one wishes to prevent or curtail the suffering involved.

The article represents an attempt to read and analyze five of eleven inscriptions in Old Chorasmian language written in cursive Chorasmian script. These inscriptions are incised on silver vessels which were mostly found in the Kama region of the district of Perm in Russia. The article is divided into sections. Its first section presents a list of the material discussed and the status quaestionis of the article, introduces the variations of the Chorasmian script throughout time. The second section is devoted to the analysis of the words which are recurrent in the inscriptions and to the definition of the formular-ies used in the inscriptions under scrutiny. The third section provides tentative reading of inscriptions on five vessels kept in the Hermitage museum. It is here assumed that some of the Chorasmian inscriptions indicate that the vessels were votive offerings to Nanaia and probably to other deities. The fourth and last section of the paper focuses on the indications of weight attested on silver vessels and on the related chronology. It is shown that the value of the unit of weight (ZWZN /stēr/) on most of the vessels (c. 3,6-3,7 grams) corresponds to the silver standard weight used in the coinage of the Chorasmian king Shaushfarn and his less prominent predecessor Shyat. Consequently, it is assumed that the Chorasmian silver vessels were labeled and probably produced during Shaushfarn's reign about the mid-8th century AD. Since four inscriptions with indication of weight are dated according to the Chorasmian Era (years from 700 to 723(?) of this era), this observation supports the author's opinion that this indigenous era started towards the mid-1st century AD. FOR THE WHOLE TEXT PLEASE INQUIRE AUTHOR AT pavlvslvria(at)gmail.com