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Chapters: Pannonia, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Jasenovac Concentration Camp, United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Treaty of Passarowitz, Iapydes, 1991 Population Census in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srebrenica Massacre, Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, List of Ancient Tribes in Illyria, List of Bosnian Genocide Prosecutions, Stephen Ii, Ban of Bosnia, Demographic History of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sokollu Mehmet Paşa, Husein Gradaščević, Bosnian Mujahideen, Alija Izetbegović, Bosniak History, Report About Case Srebrenica, Habsburg Monarchy, House of Šubić, Joint Criminal Enterprise, Tomislav of Croatia, Bosnian Crisis, Turkish Croatia, Bosnian Council, List of Rulers of Bosnia, Desilo, Bosnian Uprising, Hamdija Pozderac, Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, Zachlumia, Islamic Declaration, Early History of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Praetorian Prefecture of Illyricum, Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Banovina of Croatia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, Great Illyrian Revolt, Petar Gojniković, Srebrenica Genocide Memorial, Bosnian Church, Islamization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hrvoje Vukčić, Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, Daorson, Mrkonjić Grad Incident, Stephen Dabiša of Bosnia, Vrbas Banovina, Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Trpimir I of Croatia, Stećak, Treaty of Karlowitz, Mihailo Višević, Bosnia Province, Ottoman Empire, Stephen Držislav of Croatia, Narodna Odbrana, Stephen Ostoja of Bosnia, Early Ottoman Sarajevo, Zeta Banovina, Pannonian Sea, Theme of Sirmium, Bosnia and Herzegovina Dinar, Ali Džabič, Rüstem Pasha, Herzegovina Uprising, Hrvoje's Missal, Littoral Banovina, Diocese of Pannonia, Mogorjelo, Butmir Culture, Stephen Kulinić, Drina Banovina, Visočica, the Enclave, Hval Manuscript, Austroslavism, Serbinum, House of Nelipić, Ban B...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=6017803 ... Read more

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Journalist Timothy Judah witnessed firsthand many of the most horrifying episodes of the war in former Yugoslavia while on assignment from 1990-1995.Judah offers here a history of the Serbs from medieval times to the present, combining a gripping personal description of the war with a skillful analysis of the historical and cultural context out of which it emerged.For this paperback edition Judah adds observations on the emergence of a more moderate Bosnian Serb leadership, and on the worrying signs of a possible new war, this time in Kosovo.Amazon.com Review
The recent war in Bosnia re-ignited ancient hatreds and led to acts of brutality that echoed World War II atrocities: large-scale massacres and "ethnic cleansing". Bosnian Serbs, aided by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, systematically murdered, raped, and terrorized Bosnian Muslims as they strove to create a Greater Serbia. Now, journalist Tim Judah provides some perspective on the horrors of the Bosnian conflict with The Serbs. Make no mistake, Judah is not an apologist for Serbian excesses; rather, he aims to explicate the Balkans' long and violent history leading to this latest tragic conflict.

The Serbs begins with the establishment of a Serbian state in the Middle Ages,then follows Serb fortunes through ensuing centuries of conquest, conflict, and oppression. Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans is hardly unique to the Bosnian war; it has been a horrific element of all Balkan conflicts, and Judah convincingly argues that Serbian nationalism is an outgrowth of the Serbs' own sufferings as victims of ethnic cleansing in past conflicts.Anyone interested in current affairs--particularly in the Balkans--will find Tim Judah's The Serbs an engrossing and important exploration of the Bosnian conflict. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (32)

Important book, but somewhat biased against the Serbs
The books starts with the standard history of the Serbs, from ancient times to the Yugoslavia wars. As the time goes by, Judah takes an increasingly hostile opinion of the Serbs and their leaders.

So while the first parts are important and interesting stuff that is not much written about outside Europe, the later parts look like the Usual Serb Bashing writings.

From the book, you could think that Serbia during the 90's was only murderers, thieves and criminals.

The author laments that unlike the Bosnians and the Croats, the Serbs didn't greatly publicize their suffering, and that had a cost at the PR war. Well, unfortunately his research does nothing to compensate for this,as he didn't try to hard to present the Serbian suffering.

Serbs love to rewrite history
This is actually a pretty good book. Basic facts:
Since Serbs (aka as Servs) came from Russia in the 7th century they have only caused trouble. Their main problem is arrogance and underestimating others, namely the natives, the Albanians. Serbs will probably not like the book as it tells the truth about their xenophobic Orthodox Church and how it has supported genocide and Serbian concentration camps, but the truth is the truth.

Serbs have started: The First Balkan War (to get Albanian lands and Macedonia), The Second Balkan War (Turkey was their ally and they fought against Bulgaria), WWI, WWII (indirectly by starting WWI,) War against Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Other than the battles when Russia backed them, they have them all.

Their pride is the 1389 surrender to the Turks. To make peace they gave their Saint's daughter to the Sultan's harem, and they fought against Christians in Nicolisa, the Second Kosovo War and sent 1500 knights to help the Turks take Constantinople.

A good book
This is a book which presents a history of Serbs in objective manner. Some says it is anti-Serb, but this is not true. It only mentions good as well as dark spots in Serbian history. All periods in Serbian history are covered sufficiently enough, although the emphasis (about half of the book) is on violent dissolution of Yugoslavia. This imbalanced coverage would be a shortcoming if this was a general history of Serbs, yet as its name tells this is not only a book on Serbs but also on destruction of Yugoslavia. When he deals with this period, some events (for example, economy in Serbia, details on atrocities) are given perhaps too great coverage and it would be better if this space were devoted to earlier periods in Serbian history.
Nevertheless, it is a book well worth money for buying and time for reading it.

Miserable propaganda
Throwing usnuported by the facts claims about Serbs and intentionally distorting the truth - are the only marks of this book. Good for garbage bin, as somebody already mentioned here.

Devoid of historical seriousness or journalistic integrity
It is necessary to correct the current trend of public commentary, which tends, systematically, not to understand events in the former Yugoslavia but to construct a propagandistic version of Balkan rivalries, designed to validate the existing post-modern myths and prejudices. This book faithfully reflects the post-modern blinkers that its author has helped first create and then perpetuate in his "coverage" of the Wars of Yugoslav Succession. This book reflects his (and their) belief that the Orthodox nations of Southeast Europe - embodied in "the Serbs" - are The Other vis-a-vis "The West" in the Huntingtonian sense. The author's assumptions are prejudiced in a coarse, primordial manner.

Judah's mindset helps us understand why the problem of the Balkans under UN/EU/NATO/UNMIK/KFOR/SFOR. . . is inseparable from the quandary of America under the bipartisan regime inside the Beltway, or that of Europe "united" under the Leviathan of Brussels. This book unintentionally poses many questions, and answers none. Can any meaningful unity of nations sharing European heritage be restored? To what extent, how, and why has the modern, secular, "post-Christian" West inherited the antipathy of West to the carriers of the Byzantine tradition? How do those two traditions converge, and how do they diverge, amidst the continuing onslaught of globalized secularism? Such issues are not merely political. They are as much "cultural" as theological, and they have been political all along. It is on the way we deal with them today that the future of our civilization will depend, and it that endeavor Judah has decided to side with the bad guys.

A book is badly needed to counter Judah's prejudice and ignorance about an area of the Old Continent which need never be the "powder keg of Europe." Though the Balkans, however delineated, contain many states and even more nations, they have one thing in common: for most of history they have not been masters of their own fate, but objects of policy by dominant outside powers. Though depicted by Judah as aggressing against their neighbors and generating wider conflicts, the Serbs in most cases had these conflicts foisted upon them by powerful outsiders and their local minions.

In particular Judah's attempt to relativize the Ustasha genocide of some 500-700,000 Serbs is scandalous. Had the same apparatus of quasi-historical whitewash been applied to the victims of Treblinka, such book surely would not have seen the light of day - and rightly so.

Even if all history-as a philosopher argued-is in some measure contemporary history, it need not be dominated by the obsessions of the day. The cause of tolerance in a troubled region can never be advanced by misrepresentation or by the sentimental lapse of seriousness which judges one patriotism as admirable and condemns another as inadmissible. This book is found wanting on all fronts. ... Read more

Product Description

This book provides a comprehensive insight into one of the key episodes of the Cold War – the process of reconciliation between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

At the time, this process had shocked the World as much as the violent break-up of their relations did in 1948. This book provides an explanation for the collapse of the process of normalization of Yugoslav-Soviet that occurred at the end of 1956 and the renewal of their ideological confrontation. It also explain the motives that guided the two main protagonists, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and the Soviet leader Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev.

Based on Yugoslav and Soviet archival documents, this book establishes several innovative theories about this period. Firstly, that the significance of the Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation went beyond their bilateral relationship. It had ramifications for relations in the Eastern Bloc, the global Communist movement, and on the dynamics of the Cold War world at its crucial juncture. Secondly, that the Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation brought forward the process of de-Stalinization in the USSR and in the Peoples’ Democracies. Thirdly, it enabled Khrushchev to win the post-Stalin leadership contest. Lastly, the book argues that the process of Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation permitted Tito to embark, together with Nehru of India and Nasser of Egypt upon creating the new entity in the bi-polar Cold War world – the Non-aligned movement.

This book will be of interest to students of Cold War History, diplomatic history, European history and International Relations in general.

Svetozar Rajak is a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the Managing Director of the LSE Cold War Studies Centre and is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Cold War History.

Product Description
This concise history of Bosnia-Hercegovina is designed for the non-specialist reader who seeks to understand the historical background of the Bosnian conflict that erupted in 1992 in the wake of Serbian and Croatian agression. It covers the principal developments in Bosnian History, from the early medieval period until the end of 1993, focusing on the creation of religious communities and their evolution into ethnic groups and distinct nationalities. ... Read more

Product Description
From its settlement in the 7th century to its conquest by Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th, Dubrovnik repeatedly held a significant position beyond what could have been expected of this tiny city-state. But Dubrovnik also faced the extreme dangers posed by Venetian plotters, Ottoman aggressors, natural disasters and, finally, Napoleon. In modern times, the city survived the besieging Yugoslav army in 1991-92, which heavily damaged but did not destroy Dubrovnik's cultural heritage. This book is a comprehensive history of Dubrovnik's progress over twelve centuries of European development, encompassing arts, architecture, social and economic changes and the traumas of war and politics.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A word of warning
For the last ten years Dubrovnik, a gem of a city on the Adriatic coast, has been an increasingly popular tourist attraction. The fortified old town, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the beaches, the cuisine and the friendly people make Dubrovnik well worth a visit. Visitors will enjoy their stay even more if they are aware of the city's rich history. Dubrovnik flourished for centuries as the Republic of Ragusa and was a rich trading rival to Venice and a player in the diplomacy of the Balkans. Robin Harris's "Dubrovnik: A History" brings the medieval and early-modern city to life. This is a well-written and beautifully-illustrated volume but readers should beware: Harris's account pretty much ends in 1808. This is not so much as history of Dubrovnik as it is a history of the Republic which was extinguished in the early 19th century. Readers who are curious about the city's fate after that -- and it has a rich history under the Habsburgs, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia and finally an independent Croatia -- will have to look elsewhere.

St. Blasius, Middle Age Mystic
Robin Harris has demonstrably added to what has been called "The Pearl of the Adriatic"'s historical foundation in a delightful way.Not only is "Dubrovnik" well researched, it is also a joy to read, particularly passages describing the complexity of Dubrovnik's trade until the Napoleonic Wars.One travels to Dubrovnik, looks at history -Harris has done much to shed light on Dubrovnik's great walls and its rich cultural preserve.

Gregor Dekleva

A Must Have Book!
Simply put this is a must have book for any person interested in Croatian history, especially the city of Dubrovnik (the Croatian Athens). The author pulls together his information from an exhaustive list of mostly non-English resources and puts them together in a very orderly and interesting manner. The author brings life to the history of Dubrovnik (not that he would need to) which makes for a very interesting and easy read. I personally loved this book from beginning to end and can only hope the author produces more books on Croatian history (perhaps the next one could tackle the history of Split?). Overall, an excellent piece of work and a great price for a book that should be in every serious Croatian historian's library. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Essential reading for those who "skipped" Constantinople in school
Why study Byzantine and Ottoman history as it relates to the Balkans...?

Simply because you can't understand any other part of European history without knowing about this key region...and it's key players--the Eastern Romans of Constantinople, and later the Ottomans.

I am amazed that anyone would even try to understand European history from 600AD to 1914...without having a clear grasp of Byzantine and Ottoman history...This period in Europe was at the end of the Roman Empire...but before the current nation states of Europe were fully formed...or even imagined.The only "super power" during these key formative years was Byzantium a/k/a Constantinople,...later called Istanbul under the Ottomans...

My copy of this book is well marked up...and I won't part with it...

The writing style is highly readable...not forced or needlessly obscure...In short, this book is a "page turner" if you are interested in really understanding...not only the Balkans which are really the pawns in the story...but the other nations that made the Balkans their main geopolitical focus for a thousand years...which, quite frankly, was all of Europe as we now know it!

If Rudyard Kipling wrote a history of the Balkans
According to the copyright page of "A History of the Balkans," this book was published in 1991. On page 80, it says "down to our own day (1918)...." And on page 519 it says "but so far (June 1922)...."

I bought Ferdinand Schevill's book because I wanted to learn more about the Balkan peninsula from another point of view besides that of the Ottoman Empire. This book is larded with asides to the reader which, after a few pages, become quite annoying. The author's value judgments are another annoyance which, when coupled with his references to "the yellow races," make the book an unpleasant read.

Before this book, I read Dennis P. Hupchick's "The Balkans from Constantinople to Communism." Of the two, I'd recommend Hupchick's book for its to-the-point style.Also, Hupchick's book has much clearer maps.

Excellent and informative book
As a non-historian interested in Balkan problems I found this book filled with historic details and descriptions that helped me elucidate reasons behind today's underlying conflicts. It reads like a novel occassionally with awry ironic tone and yet seems fair and unbiased. It will remain on my shelf to be re-read and referred to. ... Read more

Product Description
Recounting the tumultuous recent history of the Balkan region, this interdisciplinary study follows a bloody trail of guerrilla warfare from the post World War I era through World War II, the civil wars, and the communist rise to power in Albania, Greece and Yugoslavia. The central figures examined include Hitler, Joseph Broz-Tito, Enver Hoxha, and Aris Velouchiotis (AKA Thanasis Klaras). The author's evocation of the lives of individual Balkan citizens in the face of international politics fleshes out the historical sweep of this book's primary documents. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Illusions put together in fabulous articulation
This is a great book about the communist and the other factors that have driven the government in the baltic region.I was glued to the pages as if in a trance.I found the book thought provoking and challenging.I thinkthat the other person who left a review should be dragged out onto thestreets and shot.There are no words to describe the detail and thoughtthat this book provides.If you are doing any sort of research project Iwould reccommend this book above all others

Too much repetition.
This book is about how the Communists came to power in Albania -- with a few mentions of Yugoslavia -- after World War II.Unfortunately, the author repeats himself too much so that the reader gets the impression thathe could have made his point in a quarter the number of pages.I am surethe book is well researched; however, the author seems to have a bone topick with the political spectrum in general while evidently siding with theCommunist doctrine over any other.Had I not been using the book forresearch purposes myself, I don't think I would have finished it. ... Read more

Product Description
"From Peacekeeping to Peacemaking" provides the first extensive examination of Canada's response to the recent disintegration of the Federal State of Yugoslavia. Nicholas Gammer reflects on how Canadian foreign policy was made and on the role of the prime minister in this decisionmaking, showing that Brian Mulroney, closely supported by his secretary of state for external affairs, used his office to seize the opportunity to redefine international standards on humanitarian intervention and initiate a shift in Canadian foreign policy. Gammer shows that Mulroney took considerable risks in doing this, ignoring the conventional wisdom that it was folly to become involved in the age-old ethnic conflicts of the former Yugoslavia. Given the support of the Mulroney government, many of the Canadian units under the United Nations in Yugoslavia were willing to bend the United Nations' rules of engagement when confronting Muslim, Serb, and Croat forces, establishing Srebrenica as a Muslim safe haven and defending it against Serb attacks. The Chretien government, however, assumed a more cautious policy.Gammer shows how understanding the government's role in this particular crisis contributes to our understanding of the role that political leadership plays in shaping Canadian foreign policy in general, as well as advancing our knowledge of the broader theoretical debates surrounding the legitimacy and effectiveness of humanitarian intervention in the internal affairs of state. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: History / General; Religion / General; History / General; History / Europe / Eastern; History / Military / Other; ... Read more

Product Description
Despite the central role of tourism in the political making of the Yugoslav socialist state after WWII and in everyday life, the topic has remained neglected as an object of historical research, which has tended to dwell on war and ethnicA" conflict in the past two decades. For many former citizens of Yugoslavia, however, memories of holidaymaking, as well as tourism as a means of livelihood, today evoke a sense of the good lifeA" people enjoyed before the economy, and subsequently the country, fell apart. Undertakes a critical analysis of the history of domestic tourism in Yugoslavia under Commumism. The story evolved from the popularization of tourism and holidaymaking among Yugoslav citizens in the 1950s and 1960s to the consumer practices of the 1970s and 1980s. It reviews tourism as a political, economic and social project of the Yugoslav federal state, and as a crucial field of social integration. The book investigates how socialist and Yugoslav ideologies aimed to turn workers into consumers of purposefulA" leisure, and how these ideas were set against actual practices of recreation and holidaymaking. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is a study of revolution, genocide and national identity in Bosnia-Hercegovina during World War II. It explains the civil war between two rival guerrilla movements -the Partisans and the Chetniks - both in terms of long-term socio-economic and cultural fissures in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and in terms of short-term differences in policy and ideology. A chronological narrative history of the Bosnian Partisan movement allows the reader to understand how it evolved, as it first provoked the emergence of its Chetnik rival, and was then forced to adapt under pressure from the latter. This volume will be essential reading for scholars and students of the former Yugoslavia, and for all those interested in Communism, nationalism, revolution, or genocide. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (14)

Amazing read, informative and captivating
First of all, forgive me for saying 'captivating' in the title.Though it has a feminine connotation, I mean it in the truly hypnotic definition.

Second, this book was hard to put down.I didn't expect it and being a student of history (I love historic books and biographies), I found this one very impressive.

You might feel a bit like you're on a cruise, with smooth, calm, boring waters at points but it doesn't disappoint with storms on the horizon.I never realized how much history Yugoslavia contained.

Some might comment regarding the names of towns or mistakes in dates but this book gives background to three things:
1.The rise of the conflicts in the region
2.The rise of Tito in during his time
3.The lead-up to the war of 1990's

At times there seems to be a bias for one side or another, but the bias isn't consistent and the author has mentioned it in his introduction from what I remember.

I couldn't put this book down, and enjoyed it.You do get a bit of the authors paradigms at times but this doesn't diminish the quality of content, and this paradigm probably helped him deal with all the research he's done.

But a little too sympathetic?
Richard West's excellent biography of Tito is also a good history of the Balkans and the suicidal conflicts involving all sides.Mr. West knows his subject very well and provides solid documentation.He does, however, seem oddly sympathetic to Tito, and glosses over some of the tyrant's monstrous behavior, especially his mass murders of Serbians following World War II.

Almost comically misguided and pro-Serbian
The reader from Zagreb already pointed out some of the many factual errors and erroneous conclusions which this book is rife with. The author seems especially error-prone when straying away from Tito himself to attempt making larger conclusions about the events in the region and their sources and consequences.

Instead of picking on little details, I'll just make some helpful recommendations.

If you want insight into Tito and the wartime Partisans, read Milovan Djilas's "Wartime" and Fitzroy McLean's "Eastern Approaches".

For some further (less flattering) insight into Tito postwar, read Ion Mihai Pacepa's "Red Horizons", which is mostly about Rumania and Causescu, but mentions Tito several times, speaking in some detail about the relationship between the two dictators.

If you want insight into the true Serbian role in WW2, read the excellent "Sebia's secret war" by Philip J. Cohen. The facts are readily available, they've just been obscured by the long-discredited postwar propaganda that the author chooses to repeat in this book, for reasons known only to him.

If you want to know about the massive bloody payback that was extracted right after WW2 for the crimes the Ustasha commited during the war, against both them and anyone else implicated by proxy (and just for not being zealous enough politically), read "Operation Slaughterhouse" by Guldescu and Prcela. It's difficult to find, and is a large volume, but if you really want to know, try to find a copy.

If you want to really know how the wars in the former Yugoslavia started, read Laura Silber and Allan Little's excellent "Yugoslavia: Death of a nation". And no, you won't find old-fashioned platitudes about religion and "all of them being savages, so what can we do?" in there.

I can see from some of the other reviews here that this book has already done damage. But if you are really curious about the region and it's history, read the above volumes, and you'll certainly be far better informed than this sadly deficient volume can provide.

Sadly, the author seems keen on repeating old and tired cliches about the region, dating from WW1 (and that weren't particularly true even then), and his thin attempts at excusing the role of the Serbs in the recent wars with moral relativism are almost upsetting (knowing less informed readers might believe such conclusions). After all, if everyone started extracting payback for historical wrongs, we'd be left with a planet of blind people. Such arguments are no excuse, even with the over-inflated claims the author makes about WW2 war crimes, while ignoring the true extent of the crimes of the Chetniks (and their habitual and consistent cooperation with Nazis and Italian Fascists).

As for his claims about Bosnian "fundamentalism", well, he's clearly never actually met a Bosnian Muslim. Or at least, not before the wars, which understandably somewhat tipped people there in a unfortunate direction. Without a shadow of a doubt, no Bosnian would have tolerated Wahhabi vermin among their midst before the horrors of the recent war there. Trying to project minority postwar attitudes backwards is very ill-informed, and just plain wrong.

The author also mentions postwar Ustasha terrorist acts, however, he absurdly seems to think that problem was not dealt with in-country. In fact, it's well known (among those of us with a clue, at any rate), that all Ustasha attempts at postwar infiltration were met with failure and shooting deaths of the participants. Also, agents of the infamous UDBA (Yugoslav secret police) were famous for hunting down both Ustashe and other dissidents worldwide and assasinating them. This is well known. It puzzles me how the author was unaware of the extent of such activities by Tito's secret police.

All that said, I can agree with the conclusion that Tito was the most benevolent of the recent dictators, and he truly did make Yugoslavia a world player while he was in charge. No small achievement, there. Also, the standard of living and personal freedoms (while certainly not maching, say, those of the United States), were better than in all other communist countries. Then again, that was at the expense of massive debts, that had to be paid eventually. But, it was fun while it lasted.

Either way, don't waste time with this volume. Read the others I mentioned if you want true insight.

3.5 Stars
Richard West's book on Tito is more than anything, a study of the relationships among the inhabitants of eastern europe rather than a biography. Nevertheless, the book is well written, informative and at many times entertaining. It is crucial to understand the history of the area known to many as the powder keg of europe in order to learn about Tito. West does a good job of depicting the complicated relation between not only Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, etc. but even more importantly - the Muslims, Catholics, Christians, etc. I am glad that West was so staunch in his disapproval of the Ustasha - whose methods repulsed even the Nazis. However, he seems to be one-sided in the sense that Serb extremist atrocities are rarely mentioned and not as detailed. The struggles of Eastern Europes does not have good or bad guys. Both Serb and Croat extremists have performed horrendous acts on their own people and will have to look back on their history with deep sorrow and regret. To be fair, both sides have also had many strong character leaders attempt to end the violence. Many of which paid with their lives. Tito was the only person to unite the region. I wish West had even more access to Tito to provide a better picture but I guess there are other books that are more precise. In the end, the first 3/4 of the book are solid but the last section regarding the state of the Balkans after Tito seems rushed and is rather forgetable.

Great history of the Balkins
This book is very well researched and is one of the only books not to carry any ethnic bias.It is a history review rather than a documentation of Tito the man.It starts just after the Toman Empire collapsed and ends just weeks before the recent fighting of the 1990s.

I have been living in Slovenia for the last 3 years and made some travels into Serbia and Croatia.I learned more from this book that the 3 years living here. It is long and somewhat academic but a reasonably easy recreational read.

Do NOT get the other book about Tito (by Djlias)-- this was written for an audience who is interesting in debating Markist philosophy. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

A Good Start
I have always been a bit curious about the Italian Army in WWII and the years leading up to it.It seemed that they were always challenged even when attacking Third World countries.I have been looking for a good book about their Albanian campaign but I settled for a book about their greater Balkan campaign.I have nothing against the Italian military force; after all, they created the greatest empire in world history.However, compared to the brutal efficiency of the German military force, the Italians were almost an embarassment.

The author, James Burgwyn, tends to focus on the administrative and political perspective which is fine with me.The bulk of the military activity during this place and time was in fighting the guerilla war of the various partisan groups.The book does a pretty good job of explaining the various ethnic and political groups of the area.Indeed, the Balkans have always been a unique part of the world that, apparently, only Tito could handle.The Italians are portrayed somewhat as well-intentioned forces in search of their spoils of war.Compared to the Germans, they were gentle as sheep but that misses the point.Is a gentle rapist to be portrayed in a positive light because there are more violent ones in the neighborhood?In fairness to Burgwyn, he concludes his book in a critical assessment of the Italians but we have already been treated to a number of tales of Italian compassion by then.

"Empire on the Adriatic" is more scholarly than popularly written yet Burgwyn does not fall into the pitfalls of academic obfuscation in his style of writing.It reads well enough but doesn't carry the passionate impact that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people deserve.It's almost as though we are left wondering "When did that happen?"

The death of Tito opened the doors to centuries-old passions and hatreds.The Balkans are still a cauldron of ethnic animosities that are only partially controlled by a NATO presence.There are obvious comparisons of the fall of Saddam Hussein to the fall of Tito."Empire on the Adriatic" is relevent today because of its' reminders of what it is like to tame a people bent on revenge.

Mussolini's War in Yugoslavia
The Italian occupation of the former Yugoslavia during World
War II has been put under the historical microscope by
author H. James Burgwyn in his splendid new book "Empire
on the Adriatic."

For anyone seeking fresh insights into this troubled part of
the world, Burgwyn's book is essential reading.Italy's mis-
guided invasion of Yusoslavia remains an indelible stain on
the Italian body politic to this day.And when we look at the
continued struggles of the Slavs today, we can see the
germs of this struggle in Mussolini's efforts to turn Yugos-
lavia into an Italian sphere of influence during World War II.

Burgwyn details the cycle of violence and genocide that was
triggered after the Axis powers struck in April 1941 by Croa- tian Ustasa killers and pitiless Communist insurgency.This served as a prelude to the horrific massacres that
took place in the region in the 1990s.The author examines
in scholarly detail the egregious behavior of Itaian forces and the mistaken and harsh policies they were obliged to
follow during the occupation.Having gained permission to
study Italian military and diplomatic archives as well as
military archives in Belgrade, the author is able to show per-
suasively that Mussolini's blind ambition to bring a superior
civilization to a conquered nation ended in ashes.

The sad reality that Burgwyn exposes--without dealing with
this period of history at all--is the degree to which in num-
bing fashion history has repeated itself.For the United States is suffering from the same kinds of misjudgments
that led to the invasion of Iraq: lack of preparation, an inade-
quate ground force and no coherent occupation policy to
follow.The same kind of extreme difficulties Italian troops
encountered in Yugoslavia when confronted by strong oppo-
sition forces from insurgents and terrorists have been
occurring in Iraq some sixty plus years later.Just as in Iraq,
when Mussolini's troops marched into a prostrate country,
he--like Bush and his cohorts--fully expected that the occu-
pation would be "a piece of cake."

This book is a sobering reminder that hitory has much to
teach us, if only we care to learn its lesson.

















.

An objective study
Professor Burgwyn's excellent study of the Italian invasion of Yugoslavia during World War II is likely to be the definitive work on the subject for some time to come. Chronicling Mussolini's invasion requires a great deal of patience and judiciousness, since the cast of characters is large and the main plot breaks down into numerous sub-plots. Moreover, giving an objective account of what happened is not easy, since many observers who write about this murky period have axes to grind. Burgwyn, however, does not base his work mainly on secondary sources. Digging in official archives, he has fashioned a concise and clear narrative out of refractory material. His book, as a leaading historian of the period has said, is an important contribution to the history of World War II.

Very fine, but...
This is a good and useful book. It is about time that somebody wrote it. I don't think it's hard enough on the Italians, but how can we complain about historians when the real crime was that there was no Nuremberg for the Italians. Modern Italy is built on a lie about World War II and Prof. Burgwyn has performed a wonderful service in starting to chip away at that lie.

My following complaint about this book says something about the fledgling state of this scholarship. This is a careless book but it was bound to be a careless book precisely because so little work has been done in this area. The real problem is that Prof. Burgwyn does not know the local languages. So he gets the spelling wrong or he puts in Ljubljana events that took place in Zagreb, etc. The reader who is knowledgeable can easily make these corrections in his mind as he reads along. It is a shame that Prof. Burgwyn did not have an editor that could have found some of these mistakes or that he did not give his proofs to someone who knows the local languages. If I, an amateur, can catch such mistakes, I suspect a professional could have found others.

Here is an example of a crucial one. Prof. Burgwyn says that the Slovenian Communist secret police was called the OF. No, OF (Osvobodilna Fronta) stands for Liberation Front. It was the VOS that was the Secret Police of the OF. No big deal? The problem is that if an amateur catches mistakes like that about things he knows, how can he then really trust Prof. Burgwyn elsewhere.

What's the solution? More scholarly co-operation! Also, perhaps funds should be made available for translating local histories into English. There are Italian versions of this history and many of them are lies. There is now Prof. Burgwyn's excellent version in English. But the Slovenian versions, for instance, are not available.

P.S. Prof. Burgwyn's love of the expression ballon d'essai drove me crazy. In English we call it a trial balloon. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides both a unique, first-hand account of German and European diplomacy in the early stages of the Yugoslav crisis and a detailed analysis of the major issues. By correcting the many misperceptions and misjudgments about that period, the book will put the debate on Western involvement in the former Yugoslavia on a new and more solid basis. ... Read more

Product Description
The author explores the original conception and motives underlying the "Yugoslav idea", looking at the major problems, achievements and failures of the country during its short and troubled history. The book concludes with an analysis of the causes and horrifying consequences of the civil war. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent
i had to write a paper for a geography class and figured why not do it on yugoslavia. while researching, i came across this book, and thought it was a marvelous read. it is a fascinating look at the decline of yugoslavia from Tito, who ran the country remarkably well and who had a miraculously peaceful tenure as "Emperor." then Milosevic showed up and [messed] it all up. the thing i find very excellent about this book is that it describes very well how milosevic got that power. he used nationalism to his advantage to get the serbs behind him. this nationalism lead to the bloody split-up of croatia, slovenia, bosnia-herzegovina, macedonia, and finally kosovo. this book shows one of the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) examples of nationalism and the effects of nationalism. it is especially good to observe what happened to Milosevic in light of recent events throughout europe, with the hard-right gaining popularity, in such places as Romania, Hungary, and even in more tolerant France and the Netherlands. it is a worthwhile read to observe similarities between what milosevic said and did and what these new right-wing leaders are saying and doing.

Superb account of Yugoslavia's destruction by outside forces
This is an excellent book by a Professor of Political Science at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada. 'International History Review' said of the first edition that it was "far superior in its factual coverage and balance to its various competitors in the field. .. He has told the story as completely and as impartially as we are liable to get." Cohen gives a brief history of Yugoslavia in the first chapter. The rest of the book gives a detailed account of Yugoslavia's breakup and the war.

Yugoslavia existed as a state from 1918 to 1991. Under Tito it had a devolved and federal constitution. This gave parity representation to each of the six republics in the Yugoslav federation, even though Serbia was by far the biggest. Tito selected people for jobs by 'ethnic arithmetic' and rotated top officials annually. But these policies signally failed to unify Yugoslavia. The constitution encouraged those who wanted to split the country. They had a two-track strategy. They aimed to move from federation to confederation as a step towards independence; at the same time they formed separate institutions designed for complete independence.

Outside forces seized on these internal failings. In January 1991 the US and German Ambassadors pressed the Yugoslav National Army not to intervene to keep Croatia in Yugoslavia. In early 1991 Germany and other countries sold arms to Croatia and Slovenia. On 25 June 1991 Croatia and Slovenia unilaterally declared their independence. The Croats were desperate for foreign intervention: "The Tudjman government believed that immediate internationalization of the Yugoslav crisis was absolutely crucial."

When the Yugoslav Government deployed the National Army to hold the country together, the EC secretly threatened to cut off all aid to Yugoslavia. On 4 October 1991, the opening day of the EC Conference, its chairman Lord Carrington presented an agenda "premised on the assumption that Yugoslavia no longer existed." The EC announced that all the Yugoslav republics "are sovereign and independent with international identity". As Cohen wrote, "the EC had apparently made a political decision to dismember the Yugoslav federation." Hurd warned in December 1991 that recognising Croatia and Slovenia would escalate the war. Carrington warned that recognition would weaken diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire and a settlement, and would also spread the war to Bosnia. Despite, or because of, all these good reasons, the EC, including Britain, recognised Croatia and Slovenia in January. The UN did too, despite its "internal divisions about the propriety of intervention in a sovereign state's domestic disputes."

The war did spread to Bosnia. In July 1991 the Moslem Bosnian Organization tried to negotiate a Moslem-Serb accord to prevent war in Bosnia and to preserve Bosnia's territorial integrity. Karadzic accepted this for the Bosnian Serbs, but Izetbegovic, the leader of the Bosnian Muslims, rejected it. Izetbegovic is a member of the fundamentalist 'Fida'iyane Islam', which wants to turn Bosnia into an Islamic Republic, although Muslims are only a third of the population. Bosnia's Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic tried to justify the composition of his government by saying "It is a fact that Moslems make up 99% of the Bosnian defense forces so it is natural that they form the government." In so doing he gave the lie to the nonsense that Bosnia is some form of multicultural democracy. These armed forces have been "strengthened with thousands of volunteers from various Islamic countries" and by illegal arms shipments, often through Slovenia, especially from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

In his 1970 Islamic Declaration, which he reprinted in 1990, Izetbegovic wrote, "The Islamic movement must and can take power not only to destroy the non-Islamic power but to build up a new Islamic one." Cohen noted "the more militant and religiously nationalistic majority in the party led by Alija Izetbegovic (who had spent eight years in jail under the communists for his Islamic fundamentalist beliefs)." Cohen analysed "the role of traditional religions in generating ethnic conflicts" in Yugoslavia.

Again, in February 1992 Izetbegovic sabotaged the Lisbon Agreement for Moslem-Serb-Croat power-sharing. He "later conceded that Bosnia might have avoided a violent war if it had stayed together with Serbia and Montenegro in a reconfigured Yugoslavia." In early 1992 his dash for Bosnian independence was "prompted by the opportunity for quick recognition by the EC." Even the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia called his decision 'disastrous'. Cohen pointed out that "the lack of a political settlement among the major ethnic groups within Bosnia-Herzegovina actually justified postponing recognition of that republic as another new state in April 1992." But the EC and the UN went ahead with recognition. In the autumn of 1993 Bosnian Moslem government forces killed "thousands of civilian Croats in central Bosnia".

The United States has throughout the war campaigned for US intervention. As Cohen pointed out, it used hyperbolic calls of genocide to try to justify intervention. It has vilified the Serbs and whitewashed the Bosnian Moslems and the Croats. To defeat the Serbs, "the United States, though not ostensibly taking sides in the war, had effectively engineered the Moslem-Croat agreement." Cohen showed how "behind the scenes, Washington was gradually expanding its military support for the Moslems and Croats". Clinton approved the initiative of a group of former US military officers to assist Croatia's armed forces.

Cohen finished by writing hopefully, "The imperatives of economic survival and reconstruction, as well as geographic proximity and other earlier interdependencies, suggested that such cooperation would eventually resume despite the recent episodes of terrible, ethnic, religious, and political violence." But there is no chance of this vital peaceful reconstruction happening with 60,000 foreign troops in the country. Their presence will prolong the war in Yugoslavia, and also runs a high risk of spreading it to other countries. It will certainly worsen the tension between the NATO powers and Russia. Bulgaria and Greece will not appreciate the presence of so many NATO troops so near to them.

Allana's Review
I really enjoyed this book and I hope it will help me on my Project. ... Read more

Product Description
This sociological study of the last 30 years of the Yugoslavian state analyzes its distintegration through the examination of state and society. It emphasizes the role of both the official ideology of self-management and nationalism in the destruction of the federation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Extract from �Books on Bosnia�, London 1999
The author is a researcher at the University of Belgrade, and seems unable to extricate himself from the intellectual constraints of his position. The first half of the book deals with `self-management' and thebureaucratization of the Communist Party: valid themes, no doubt, buthardly key elements of an explanation of the war. When he finally turns tothe break-up of Yugoslavia, he begins with a grossly Serb-nationalistaccount of the Kosovo question; thereafter all blame is placed on Slovenes,Croats, etc. ... Read more

Product Description
A critical study of the influence of Mixail Soloxov on Yugoslav writers in pre-World War II and Titoist Yugoslavia. ... Read more