546 SEER, 83, 3, 2005 importantpoliticalcomplexion to what could riskotherwiseto be a very sterile analysis. Of course, one cannot know what might have transpiredhad the norm of justice figured more prominently in international efforts to resolve the Yugoslav crisis. While Williams and Scharf provide evidence of the norm's effectivenessin the laterphases of the crisis,notablywith respectto the use of force, the apprehensionofwarcriminalsand the use of economic inducements (conditionality),one can only speculateas to how effectivesome of these same instrumentsmight have been at earlierphases of the crisis.Yet if one cannot rerunhistory, reasoned conjecture of the kind that Williams and Scharfoffer here is the best substitute. Department ofPolitics&International Relations RICHARD CAPLAN University ofOxford Tishkov, Valery. Chechnya.Life in a WarTom Society.With a foreword by Mikhail S. Gorbachev. University of CaliforniaPress,Berkeleyand Los Angeles, CA and London, 2004. xvii + 284 pp. Map. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.$19.95: [I2.95 (paperback). NOTWITHSTANDING several noteworthy scholarly accounts of the Chechen war(s)-John Dunlop'sRussiaConfronts Chechnya (Cambridge, I998), Matthew Evangelista's TheChechen Wars(Washington,D.C., 2002), and more recently, Dmitri V. Trenin and Aleksei V. Malashenko's Russia'sRestlessFrontier (Washington,D.C., 2004) much of the literatureon the topic consists of (generallywell meaning)journalists'deeply moving accounts of the Chechen people's sufferingand the war'simpact on young Russianssent to fightin the Caucasian republic. ValeryTishkov certainlymaintains a sense of pathos for both Chechens and Russiansin Chechnya: Lifeina War-Tom Society. Moreover, his credentialsand approach make his studyfar more balanced and rigorous than thejournalists'.It is an outstandingcontributionto the literature. Tishkov is a 'scholarpolitician'. In addition to being regarded as one of Russia's leading ethnographers, Tishkov served as the Russian Federation's Minister for Nationalities during El'tsin'sfirstterm. In his officialcapacities Tishkov would naturally have had a strong role in affairs relating to the conflict. He was also a member of the peace negotiation process and the delegation involved in the Khasavyurt Agreements which ended the first Chechen war. Such experience and 'investment'in historicalprocesseswould perhaps cast some shadows on the amount of balance and detachment with which an authorcan approachhis or her topic. It is to Tishkov'screditthat he does not use this book as a summaryof his achievements and participationin Russian government or during the first Chechen War. Rather, he utilizes materials from interviews conducted by Chechen anthropologists with the Chechen people to 'empower [sic] through expression those individuals whose voices, whose visions, are least of all heard in the course of a conflict,who are least of all responsiblefor it, but who sufferthe most from it' (p. 2I5, original emphasis). Tishkov's presence in the book is largely through his synthesisof REVIEWS 547 ethnographic material with broader literatureson social theory and political processes. Indeed, one of the book's main strengths is its emphasis on process, in particularhow individualsturned to violence in this conflict. Tishkov rightly acknowledges that there have been long-term difficultiesbetween Russians (andotherformerSoviet nations)and Chechensthroughoutthepastcenturies. However, he draws attention to the fact that before the war Chechens were veryhappy to considerthemselvescitizenswithin a broadermulti-ethnicstate. Tishkov's study'sparticipants overwhelminglydemonstrate that when those Chechens who decided to take up armsmade their choices, they did so when theywere threateneddirectly.Historywas of lesserimportance.Therefore,he establishesa credible challenge to scholarsand activistswho contend that the conflict has long-standing roots which will make establishingpeace between Russians and Chechens nearly impossible. Additionally, Tishkov presents detailed informationon the processesof radicalIslamism'semergence within Chechnya. These forms are largely alien to traditional Chechen Islamic practices, generally grounded in milder forms of Sufism. The participants suggest that the difficultiesof war, poverty, social discrimination, and other factors like Wahhabist monetary incentives to convert contributed to (particularly)young Chechens'seeminglyparadoxicaladoptionof some harsh practicesof Sharia.Most importantly,Tishkovpresentsvivid accounts of how people attempted to survive. What is significant about Tishkov's account is that he humanizes the Chechens, without fawning over their struggle or demonizing them. There are, naturally, some lacunae in a study of this type. For instance, Tishkov has a few instanceswhere he generalizeswithout providingevidence to support his claims. On p. I83 he does not mention specificallyany of the internationalaid organizationsthathe allegesdid not co-operatewith Russian and official Chechen authorities, and instead...