Where the West Ends: Stories from the Middle East, the Balkans, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus

Prize-winning author Michael J. Totten returns with a masterpiece of travel writing and history in this journey through 13 nations - all but two formerly communist - just beyond the edge of the West where few casual travelers venture.

His work as an independent foreign correspondent takes him deep into the field beyond the sensational headlines, from his hilariously miserable road trip with his best friend to Iraq to the Wild West of Albania, the most bizarre country in Europe; from the killing fields in Bosnia and Kosovo to a Romania haunted by the ghosts of its communist past; from the front lines in the Caucasus during Russia's invasion of Georgia to the otherworldly post-Soviet disasterscape in Ukraine. Where the West Ends is high-octane adventure writing at its finest and is Michael J. Totten's most entertaining work written to date.