[2] Blood and Oil in the Orient, which Essad Bey claimed was an autobiography, concerns the political history of Azerbaijan in the early 20th century.
It concludes with father and son fleeing the Bolshevik takeover of Baku in 1920 via Tiflis and Batumi, Georgia, across the Black Sea to Istanbul.
Prominent Azerbaijani and Georgian historians discredit the book from historical, geographical and ethnographical points of view, and thus they insist that, despite Essad Bey's claims, it cannot be relied upon as autobiographical.
For example, G. Yashke wrote: "The only real aim of this book is to make money by creating a work - the product of a spiteful fantasy - that will delight undiscerning readers who seek sensationalism.
Essad Bey's father was described as a young Azerbaijani oil entrepreneur and his mother, an imprisoned Bolshevik revolutionary.
[8] And thus, began the first of many sensational tales that may make for "good reading" but which absolutely are not true, that Essad Bey would write during his literary career which spanned slightly more than a decade from about 1926 to 1937.