Thomas Goltz is an American author, academic adventurer best known for his accounts of conflict in the Post-Soviet Caucasus region during the 1990s. His Azerbaijan Diary (M.E. Sharpe 1998/99) is an account of Azerbaijan during the years after it separated from the Soviet Union, with a special focus on the Karabakh War and the rise/return of Heydar Aliyev. The book has been declared "Essential reading for all post-Sovietologists" (Tom de Waal, "Black Garden", et al), and is heavily cited by both academics and laymen visitors to Azerbaijan to this day.Chapters have been translated into Farsi, French, German, Norwegian, Russian, Turkish and other languages.