This new book on Georgia is the latest in a series of studies on humanitarian action in armed conflict published in the United States by Brown University's Watson Institute. Previous studies having concentrated on Asia, Latin America, Africa and the former Yugoslavia, it is the first to deal with a country of the Commonwealth of Independent States. For several reasons it is an interesting study, for it describes humanitarian action in a context of widespread political, economic and social upheaval brought about by the break-up of the Soviet Union, focuses on three conflicts fought in rapid succession and involving different players and regions (South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Mingrelia) and highlights a new and particularly important theatre of action for the international community, not to mention the Russian Federation.