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Title: Yugoslavia by Laura Silber, Allan Little, British Broadcasting Corporation ISBN: 1-57500-005-9 Publisher: TV Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.11 (19 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A meticulous and exhaustive work
Comment: This book is an exhaustive account of the events that led to the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the complex, multiethnic republics that had once comprised Yugoslavia. Laura Silber and Allan Little, drawing largely on interviews with the leading characters on all sides in the conflict, have written a book that will be consulted for generations to come, for diplomacy's sake.
It is perhaps one of the longer books written about the Bosnian war (it does treat the wars in Slovenia and Croatia, respectively, as well as prime readers on the recent history of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s that shaped it for war). While it lacks in the intricate history to be found in Noel Malcolm's history of Bosnia, and the compressed highlights and historical transitions that are illustrated most vividly in Tim Judah's journalistic work about the Serbs, Silber and Little's work is most effective, in this reviewer's view, in meticulously chronicling every detail of the war in Bosnia. The front lines, the politicians, the paramilitary groups, the efforts and experiences of the few peacekeepers, the atrocities and experiences of civilians caught between exchanges of gunfire; Silber and Little have not overlooked anything surrounding Bosnia's demise. However, as the bulk of this book is devoted to Bosnia, the brief background and key events leading to Yugoslavia's demise provided in these pages could be inadequate for some first-time readers of this tragedy.
The revised Penguin Books edition of this book (under review) appeared in 1996. Throughout the dense text are recurrent references to Kosovo, the province from which Slobodan Milosevic, now an indicted war criminal made it to power in Serbia, and later in the rump Yugoslavia. Silber and Little, at that early stage, predicted that worse was yet to come in Kosovo (see pp. 383-384), writing that the post-Dayton police-dominated province with its Albanian majority (and Serb minority) would be influenced by what happened to the rest of the former Yugoslavia. In Silber and Little's words: "A peace settlement based on the principle that statehood derives from ethnicity sent powerful signals to Serbia's minorities...that could lead to further conflict in the future" (p. 384). Once again, the age-old phenomenon of having writing on the wall; Kosovo was a disaster waiting to happen, with advance warning.
Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the faceted character and nature of a long, gruesome war.
Rating: 5
Summary: A masterful account
Comment: If you read only one book on the tragedy that befell Yugoslavia in the 90s this book is the one. Deeply if subtly analytical to satisfy the social scientist, profoundly sensitive to empirical detail to please the historian, this account ranks as the best journalism of its day. It can and should be read by the widest audience: scholar, policy-maker, or generalist. I would go so far to say that not reading this book is an irresponsible act.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good, if a little one-sided
Comment: Like most of the reviewers I am a veteran Balkanist, and am impressed by the quality of both research and writing in this , I found it even easier to use than Mischa Glenny's excellent study of War & Nationalism.
My caveat is the obvious one, it takes very much the 'Guardian report from embattled Sarejevo' approach to the Bosnian conflict. The Serbs are caricatured as villains and the Muslims as heroes/victims, and the Croats relegated to an overly minor role, rather than key players. It also takes this line (a bit)with the break-up of Yugoslavia, where extremist Serb statements are extensively quoted as if representative of Yugoslavia's Serb polity, while similar stuff from Croats or Albanians is carefully put in its correct context as not speaking for the majority. The lies and misdeeds of Serb politicans are likewise accurately deconstructed, while those of the other sides tend to be taken uncritically at their own word. My own experience of living in Bosnia during 1990 was of a community for whom no sides extremists actually spoke, but were polarised against their will by war and the fear of war. The trouble is that a a historian it is easy to be caught by self-fulfilling prophecies, extremists can both talk and ignite a war which engulfs whole communities, it should not be taken as proof they were somehow articulating a whole community's desire for war all along!
Overall a useful contibution, especially in terms of chronology of who said what, and provided its bias is taken into account, well worth reading.
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Title: The Balkans: Nationalism, War & the Great Powers, 1804-1999 by Misha Glenny ISBN: 0140233776 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 28 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia by Tim Judah ISBN: 0300085079 Publisher: Yale Nota Bene Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Bosnia: A Short History by Noel Malcolm ISBN: 0814755615 Publisher: New York University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: Kosovo : A Short History by Noel Malcolm, University Pres New York ISBN: 0060977752 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (Vintage Departures) by Robert D. Kaplan ISBN: 0679749810 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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