Born 1943, Professor Revaz Gachechiladze graduated from the Faculty of Oriental Studies (History Department, Tbilisi State University, and received his Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees in Political and Economic Geography from TSU in 1969 and 1990. He is the Director of the Institute of Georgia’s Neighborhood Studies, TSU. He has taught at the Universities of Tbilisi, Oxford, and Mount Holyoke College, USA. He has written over 150 books and articles in history, as well as in social and political geography. His books include The New Georgia: Space, Society, Politics (UCL Press London, 1995), The Middle East: Space, People and Politics (three editions, 2003-2011, Tbilisi, Bakur Sulakauri Publishing: in Georgian), and Georgia in the World Context: Highlights of the History of the 20th and 21st centuries (2013 and 2017 editions, Tbilisi, Bakur Sulakauri Publishing: in Georgian). Most recently, he published in Georgian The United Kingdom: Space, Society, Politics (Tbilisi University Press, 2016). Professor Gachechiladze is a Corresponding Member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences.