When does a war begin and when does it really end? Every war leaves traces, scars in the landscape, and people's resultingtraumas are passed from one generation to the next. Post-war times can also become the years before a war.Over ten years, Swiss photographer Meinrad Schade has recorded the precarious life oscillating between war and peace in parts of Russia, Chechnya and Ingushetia, in Kazakhstan, the Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region, and in Ukraine. His portraits, still lifes, interiors, street scenes, and landscapes introduce the viewer to remote places and preliminary events. Schade's images show the long-term effects of old conflicts on people. This new book features a selection of some 160 images from Schade's "War Without War project". The essays tell the history of the countries and their conflicts, look at the decline and struggle for resurrection of the Soviet empire, and reflect on chances and restrictions of documentary photography.