Part travelogue, part history, Let Our Fame Be Great tells the stories of the forgotten peoples of the Caucasus region, an incredible cultural crossroads where Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Turkey and the Middle East meet. The area was once the home of the Golden Fleece and Prometheus' place of exile, and later inspired Pushkin and Lermontov, but its rich history has been overshadowed by decades of guerrilla warfare. Now, it is better known to us for the struggle in Chechnya and the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. Traveling through history and throughout this tumultuous region, journalist and Russia expert Oliver Bullough details the major events--from nineteenth-century Tsarist expansionism to the modern day struggles in Chechnya and South Ossetia--that have shaped this fascinating land and its people: the Chechens, Nogais, Circassians, mountain Turks, and Ingush who have been consistently besieged--and woefully overlooked--for nearly two hundred years.

Oliver Bullough studied modern history at Oxford University before moving to Russia in 1999. He lived in St Petersburg, Bishkek and Moscow over the next seven years, working as a journalist for local magazines and newspapers and then for Reuters news agency. He reported from all over Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, but liked nothing more than to work among the peoples and mountains of the North Caucasus. He moved back to Britain in 2006, and now lives in Hackney, East London.