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If you don't have the time or sufficient interest to read the book, Michael's review is a good place to get a feel for the subject.
Of course, I recommend starting with -- or, if you're interested in literature but not history, skipping to -- Tolstoy's great novella, Hadji Murat. It's a fictionalized account of the actual Murat, a leader of the Chechen resistance (though not a Chechen himself), in the Caucasian peoples' campaign against the Russian empire in the early nineteenth century. It's a brilliant story.
--Marshal Zeringue