GEORGIA, ARMENIA, AND AZERBAIJAN

In the rush to assess and reinterpret the former USSR, Millbrook's six-title series by different authors is serviceable enough, though it has neither the lucid intelligence of Clark's single-volume coverage, The Commonwealth of Independent States (above) nor the detail of Lerner's as-yet incomplete series on individual states, edited by Mary M. Rodgers et al. (e.g., Lithuania, p. 1508). This volume of ``The Former Soviet States'' series, for instance, suffers from awkward phrasing (``...the standard of living of most of the people of the Soviet Union [in 1985] was unbelievably low''—What does ``unbelievably'' mean here? ``Low'' compared to what?), while of the information is oversimplified and some explanations are too truncated to be clear. Still, Roberts makes an adequate introduction to the historic crossroads occupied by Russian Orthodox Georgia and Armenia and their Muslim neighbor, an area with particularly bitter ethnic strife, and also threatened by interference from neighbors Turkey and Iran. ``Outlook'' (summary of major current issues); ``Facts and Figures''; chronology—confusingly formatted with six ``Famous People'' (Peter I, Stalin, Mstilav Rostopovish, et al.); maps, photos, and historical prints; index. (Nonfiction. 10-13)