Although it is hailed by the West as a model of reform, Georgia's twenty years of independence have been marked by political instability, poverty and war. The authors of this book have visited the country regularly since 1991 and have been persistently critical of its unhappy trajectory from Soviet communism to the market economy. Georgia's turbulent recent history seems to foreshadow the 'Arab Spring' - but as a warning, not as an object of imitation.