OVERVIEW
In1991, Ankara-based Goltz sallied forth to explore the Turkic-speaking regions of Soviet Central Asia--just as the ‘Evil Empire’ (so-named by Ronald Reagan) started to fall apart. His focus was on the ‘Trans and the 'stans,’ or post-Soviet Central Asia and the post-Soviet Caucasus.
His new residence in Baku was a perfect perch to be a fly-on-the-wall voyeur of the hurly-burly of post-Soviet conflict and allowed him to give close attention the convoluted political process at hand in Azerbaijan , the disastrous war over Mountainous (‘Nagorno’) Karabakh, the chaos of post-Soviet Georgia and the failed independence movement in Chechnya.
These 'adventures' eventually spawned not one book, but three—and thus became a completely unplanned ‘Caucasus Triptych:’ Azerbaijan Diary (M.E. Sharpe, 1998), Chechnya Diary (Thomas Dunne/St. Martins, 2003) and Georgia Diary (M.E. Sharpe, 2006/09).
All were certainly written in a highly personal style based on first-hand reporting that many thought evoked William Shirer’s ‘Berlin Diary.’
AZERBIAJAN DIARY—A Rogue Reporter’s Adventures in an Oil-rich, War-torn, Post-Soviet Republic (M.E. Sharpe/1998, now Routledge) was a work of almost pure discovery. Not only was there very little written on the country in English (or Turkish or German, my three ‘primary’ languages) at the time I arrived in Baku that distant summer of 1991, but there was no way for me to access any deep background had any been written for the very good reason that there was nothing called ‘the Internet’ back then.
I was almost on my own, and soaked up information and impressions like a sponge, whether about the Karabakh war, politics, personalities, culture, the economics of oil and gas, and Azerbaijan’s unique geopolitical situation as a ‘pivot’ state (the only country in the world bordering both Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran), while also being the only mainly Muslim state (and Shi’ite at that) to maintain a friendly but even a friendship with Israel...
My coverage of the war with Armenia over Karabakh, and especially the Khodjali Massacre of February 25/26 of 1992 did not please Diaspora Armenians, especially in the USA but turned me into a hero elsewhere.
I have included a link to the Amazon purchase point.
CHECHNYA DIARY: A War Correspondent’s Story of Surviving The War In Chechnya (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martins Press, 2003) is as narrow in focus as the Azerbaijan book is a broad canvas of ‘Soviet’-style self re-discovery through the trauma of war and is arguably my most personal book on the Caucasus, and became the subject of someone's PhD.
Set almost entirely in a small farming town called Samashki that became notorious in the first Chechen-Russian war of 1994-96, it is the story of making a film on ‘The Chechen Spirit’ for an American television program, but quickly became much larger than that.
Briefly, I found myself living in the town as the unexpected guest of a local militia commander named Hussein and his extended family. The main lesson learned from my Samashki story is how that the Heisenberg Principle about the ‘Observer Affecting The Observed’ applies equally to war-journalism.
The orginal Samashki film became one of three finalists for the Rory Peck Awards (London) in 1997. The book had to wait until I had managed to revisit 'my' Chechen town for the BBC before the Russians rekindled the war in 1999, and my PTSD abated. Here is a YouTube link about my return; suggested donation $3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6qr2uw-
I have also included a link to the Amazon purchase point.
GEORGIA DIARY: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus (M.E. Sharpe 2006/2009, now Routledge) was first published in 2006 after years of despair. Everything about it seemed to be 'old news,' in the opinion of commercial publishers. But this gave me some years to reflect on pre-Soviet then post-Soviet reality in a way I could not when writing the Azerbaijani or Chechen books, and t was finally picked up by Patricia Kolb, my self-described 'Publisher of Last Resort' at M.E. Sharpe before Sharpe got bought out by Routledge and jacked the price of my books two-fold and thus out of the reach of ordnary readers.
No-one in the world is sorrier than I am about this, and I advise potential buyers to go to the 'used books' part of Amazon to cut a deal there, the difference being between over $50 a book for 'clean' originals and $5 or $15 a book, depending on dog-eared pages. I make no money off the re-sales so if you buy one there (which I by definition have to encourage), please hit the Donate button and send me. say, $2 a book.
'Georga Diary' would arguely be my most 'mature' post-Soviet work. The pic is of pal in Harvard library.
I have also included a link to the Amazon purchase point..
OTHER BOOKS
Assassinating Shakespeare
First drafted around 1979/80 from hand-written notes detailing my adventures as a street-level ‘busker’ in East, Central and Southern Africa in 1977/78, ‘Assassinating Shakespeare’ is actually my first book. Rejected by some thirty US publishers over the next decade it seemed destined to become a ‘bottom drawer book’ until a London publisher made an offer to publish my African ‘orphan.'1
Then disaster struck: Saqi Press (Lebanon/London) had bought 'Shakespeae' for a song and it was receiving rave reviews from the UK and US press. I had never received such accolades before! These included A FULL PAGE review in the NYTs 'Christmas' review of books, worth a (theorertical) 5,000 Internet/Amazon sales for those folks who did not know what to gift their pals and loved ones.
In vain: the Saqi printing press in Lebanon was consumed (once again) in a cyclical civil war and unable to print or ship--just as my 'Shakespeare' was receiving rave reviewes in the NYTs 'Christmas' edition.
No copies were available until late January, meaning Saqi had missed the Christmas bump. For a writer, the asummed 5,000 Christmas copies were reduced to something like five.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/books/review/Riding.t.html
AN OIL ODYSSEY is the saga of the insane Soviet side-car motorcycle trip down the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline designed to bring Azerbaijani crude oil from the Caspian Sea to the eastern Mediterranean Turkish port of Ceyhan (‘Jeyhan’) via Georgia that I organized in, 2000.
While seemingly triumpant, this he book is filled with international intrigue, bitter personal rivalries among team members and even a love affair. It is also one weird motorcycle epic that explores the concept of “Who Says Geopolitics Can’t Be Fun?
There is also a very fraternal aspect about this book, because my Number Two was my younger brother Number Seven (we are eight kids, and I am Number 2.) Thus, this across-the Caucasus motor-cycle madness becomes a mixture of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mantinence and The Blues Brothers.
In addition to the Kindle book link to the book, here is the MTV-style music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooAjLafg_NI&t=15s
Thomas Goltz 
