This book is a "must" source if you want to learn about the former-Yugoslavia's history, economic system, and its recent war (and related Balkan crisis). I found it indispensible to use during a course study, and an easy-to-follow, knowledge-packed source for a paper related to the recent Bosnian war.

An excellent close-up look at the Yugoslavs before the collapse and before Tito's death. The author was born in Yugoslavia, grew up abroad, then returned as a newspaper correspondent. The book is particularly insightful because Doder was able to write about the very real fissures in Yugoslav society before it became politically incorrect to do so.

What struck me at first about this book was the clear and concise history of Yugoslavia Sudetic provides in the opening chapter. He draws together the salient points of hundreds of years of Balkan history to set the stage for the recent troubles.

Following the Celik family as they are displaced by the war and eventually holed up in the ill-fated town of Srebrenica is moving. The larger picture of how the war progressed and the atrocities committed, by both sides, is infuriating, as is the military inaction of the western governments and the UN. (In fairness, western military action may have only added fuel to the fire - I recommend Rohde's End Game to see the perspective of the troops on the ground and the difficulties they were faced with.)

In all, this book leaves a very real feeling of loss with you, and you will probably come away feeling like people in the Balkans do today: sad at their loss, hungry for revenge, hopeful for a better future.

Blood and Vengeance is a gripping account of the date of the unlucky people who were trapped in the Srebrenica "safe" zone. Like no other book, it details the extent of the massacres and the direct participation of ordinary citizens and Serbian higher ups in the massacre of thousands of civilians. A witness even places Gen. Mladic personally supervising executions in a vast killing field that went on for hours. The ineptitude and cowardice of the UN is truly bewildering. The author has trouble getting the story going. The narrative jumps abruptly from the daily life of a Bosnian Muslim family before the war, to the unfolding political events, to Balkan history and even the author's comings and goings. Much attention is paid to minute details, while fundamental areas are glossed over. It is not until the second half, when the featured Muslim Bosnian family is forced into Srebrenica, that everything comes into place. The unfolding international events begin to flow seamlessly into the personal story line, and the book ends up reading like the best (and saddest) of thrillers. Yet the question remains unanswered: How could your neighbor turn into your torturer overnigh

This great book exposes truths that the world needs to hear, and acknowledge. First, the convenient fallacy that all sides in the Bosnian war were equally guilty of the evils perpetrated there. They weren't. Sudetic also dispenses with the international community's implication that the corrosive violence of 1992 - 1995 was inevitable. It wasn't, but rather was deliberately manipulated by nationalist Serb leaders. And he damningly shreds the fiction that the U.N. did what it could to prevent the Srebrenica massacre, exposing an unbelievable moral cowardice & incompetence, particularly of Bernard Janvier & Yasushi Akashi. Riveting, searing, ultimately heartbreaking. Read it.

I read "Return with Honor," I thought it was the best book that I have every read so far. It points out how Captain Scott O'Grady survives in unknown territory. That what he did to survive those days out there alone. We as a society can apply some of the same techinques in our own daily life. Such as praying to God and trusting and having more faith within ones self. He points out these positive ideas through out his book. I am planning on reading it a second time. I recommend that anyone out there, that hasn't read it yet. Go and check it out of the library or better yet buy "Return With Honor!"

I had the honor of meeting Scott O'grady and hearing his story first hand. My company had brought Scott in as a motivational speaker. When he told us the story as it had unfolded, there was not a dry eye in the room. Even though I had already heard the story I still read the book. It brought tears to my eyes again. I have read this book 4 times and have cried each time I have read it. I have given a copy of this book to every member in my family. It is a story of faith, hope, trust, survival, strength and a desire to live. It was truly inspirational for me. It's nice to see there are still some people with strong beliefs in God and family.

I am a sixth grader at Seminole Middle School. My reading teacher reccomened this book to me and it is the best book I have ever read.It is about an F-16 pilot named Scott Ogrady who is shot down in the skies over Bosnia,and survives with the will to survive and the help of god.

"NATO in the Balkans" is a must for anyone who seeks the full truth about the US/NATO war against Yugoslavia. Tired of the CNN version of reality? Tired of the lies and half-truths? "NATO in the Balkans" is the best antidote for what has been passing as "objective" journalism. It shows, in a fully documented scholarly way, how the war against Yugoslavia has its roots in the desire of the U.S., and its NATO partners, to dominate the world economically--that is, to expand capitalist exploitation globally. This is what's behind the expansion of NATO--a cabal of right-wing militarists who became even more emboldened with the break-up of the Soviet Union. This magnificent book balances the lop-sided, ahistorical view of the conflict being pushed by the big-business media. It talks about the tens of thousands of Serbs, for example, who were "ethnically cleansed" from their homes in the Krajina region of Bosnia, with hugh numbers dying during the NATO-backed expulsion. It exposes many of the atrocities allegedly committed by Serb forces as being carried out by groups aligned with the U.S. to justify intervention. The book documents the source of the bloody conflict in the Balkans, which was instigated by the U.S. and Germany. How many people have heard about "Foreign Appropirations Law 101-513" passed by the Congress in 1991? Well, "a section of this law suddenly cut off all aid, credits and loans from the U.S. to Yugoslavia within six months. The law also demanded separate elections in each of the six republics that make up Yugoslavia, requiring State Dept. approval of election procedures and results before aid to the separate republics would be resumed," wrote author Sara Flounders in a chapter entitled "Bosnia tragedy: The unknown role of the Pentagon." In addition, "only forces that the U.S. State Department defined as 'democratic' would receive funding," wrote Flounders. This is neo-colonialism at its worst! It was the classic ploy of divide and conquer. The law was, in fact, the spark that ignited the civil war in Yugoslavia that led to the breakup of that multi-national country--one that had been peacefully united for decades under socialism--a system that the U.S. must now seek to fully crush in Europe--for starters. A simple review cannot describe the treasure trove that is "NATO in the Balkans." I have already purchased, for friends and co-workers alike, at least ten copies. Do yourself a favor, come into the light of independent thought and scholarship. Get yourself a copy soon.

The book will open your eyes. It will help you understand what is happening in the Balkans. It will inform the new generation of anti-war activists now emerging in opposition to U.S./NATO expansion and the savage bombing of Yugoslavia. Anyone interested in the truth should rush to get a copy of "NATO in the Balkans."

Nato in the Balkans was such an interesting, information-filled book that helped so tremendously in clearing the cobwebs of corporate media cleansing, that I finished the book in record time.

It is well written, very clear, documented to the hilt. It exposes how the U.S. government (and Germany) stirred up ethnic rivalry in the Balkans so that they could have a pretext for intervening. It was a coldly calculated plan to take over the area, in a move towards the oil wealth of the Caspian Sea.

The U.S. and its NATO allies don't give a hoot about human rights, not here in the U.S. or elsewhere. But this is the new cover. Before these imperialist wars were fought for "freedom and democracy." Now it's supposed to be about human rights. Well, these warmongers might as well be talking abount humming mites, or humid nights; they couldn't care less about the human rights of anyone.

It's all about corporate greed and the need for the capitalist system to keep expanding or face collapse.

The disintegration of the former Soviet Union--which the U.S. also helped to engineer--only emboldened the warmongers in Washington and at the Pentagon, along with their junior partners in Europe.

Come out of the deep sleep of U.S. consumer society. Open your mind to what's going on in the world. Make the links between imperialist war abroad and reactionary domestic policies, like the gutting of the Welfare system.

Guess who's paying for the Pentagon war machine? It ain't the Rockefellers or the Mellons.

Pick up a copy of Nato in the Balkans asap, and tell your friends about it. It's like a breath of fresh air. And in the rancid atmosphere of north America, we all need it.

Peter Maass was a Washington Post correspondent in Bosnia 1992-93 and this is his riveting, emotive account of the war. Maass echoes many of us when he unashamedly asks the most difficult questions: Why did 250,000 Bosians lose their lives, why can't Muslims and Christians work their differences out after so long, why did genocide occur in Europe when at the end of WW II the world declared it would never happen again, why was the UN impotent once it got into Bosnia, why is the thin skin of civility easily torn and the brutality that lies beneath so easily provoked? Maass was not a cynical, hotel room hero that gives journalism a bad name, those hacks more interested in boasting in the bar and filing stories from second-hand accounts provided by local help-meets. He did his job well and came away shell-shocked, angry and fundamentally changed by what he saw: UN troops standing by while atrocities took place, how residents of Sarajevo nightly ran the gauntlet of the airport, surgeons operating without drugs, children dying on the daily water run, snipers on opposing sides chatting to one another on a two-way radio, the flourishing drug trade, people cheating, lying, killing and stealing to keep their loved ones alive. Maass speculates a little too much - some judicious editing wouldn't have gone astray - and he cannot adequately analyse the causes of the war and the outcomes for the victims involved but this was not his job anyway. He was there as a recorder of events that became a black mark in history and that he did, admirably. Maass, like veteran journalist Simon Winchester who succinctly wrote of the later crisis in Kosovo and asked similar questions, gave ordinary victims of this war a voice. While such journalistic accounts lack historical perspective because their focus is on the immediacy, their evidence is invaluable. We need such accounts, so when the spectre of genocide is raised again we can hold up books like these and say: "Haven't we learned anything yet?"

This is not the difinitive history of the Bosnian war. It's one journalist's account of his experience covering the war, published soon after the Dayton peace accords, making it one of the first books out on the subject. The story Maass tells is accurate, informative, emotional, and gripping. He's not a historian and doesn't portray himself as such. He tells the story of his struggles to get interviews, and portrays the people of Sarajevo and Bosnia, the politicians, and military & paramilitary leaders, the mistakes of the United Nations and the international community, etc. as he witnessed them.

There's probably hundreds of books now on the Balkans. This one will sere your heart.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the modern Balkans, particularly the Serb aggression that began with the rise of Milosevic in the late 80's.

Love They Neighbor is a telling of Serbia's horrific war against Bosnia and Bosnia's Muslim population as seen firsthand by Mass while he was there. Maass begins this book with a journalistic attempt to remain impartial and simply tell what he sees, however, it soon becomes clear to him that the Serbs are the aggressors and the horror the Serbs are perpetrating against their Balkan brothers and sisters is something not seen since Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. This book is not an impartial accounting of what was going on; it is an accounting of the atrocities that were perpetrated by the Serbs and tolerated by the West.

In my opinion, the best part of the book was Maass's detailing of how first the Bush administration and then the Clinton administration failed to take relatively easy measures to end the aggression. Maass also details how the U.N., instead of helping protect those being slaughtered actually implemented policies that helped the Serbs carry out their terror and ethnic cleansing. Maass tells the truth in this book, but the fact is telling the truth, in this case, can not leave one impartial.

Maass also explains thing that our cookie cutter modern new services do not explain; like how the Muslim's the Serbs were persecuting were not any more religiously extremist that your average American. One interesting moment Maass notes is when Clinton is dedicating the Holocaust museum, stating that the museum is a reminder that we can't let this happen again, while his administration, NATO, and the U.N. were actively letting it happen again.

I would recommend this book to anyone seeking to learn about recent events in the Balkans. While not an academic work, it is well-written and lends much insight into the failure of the West in quickly ending what would have been easily stoppable had they made the effort. I would also recommend this book to readers of Robert Young Pelton. If you take out the political commentary, one could easily see Pelton writing similar things about many of the situations that Maass experienced.

A good read! This book is well-researched and contains information that everyone and their brother and sister should read. This man knows Yugoslavia, knows the history of the country, and demonstrates that the world had done nothing toward solving the "nationalities" problem after the fall of Nazi Germany, when a reconciliation was possible. The author demonstrates how the world stood by and allowed the Ustasha to highjack planes, to blow them up in mid-air, to run rampant with their terrorist ideals while the Communists were in power, even going so far as to give them the places to train their terrorist soldiers. While the author condemns Tito for not confronting the problem in Yugoslavia and dealing with it while he was in power, the author also condemns the rest of the world for their complicity to the crime.

This book contains absolutely one of the best explanations of the current Balkan fiasco. While dwelling on Tito, West also explains the ethnic disputes that have torn apart Yugoslavia. West's coverage of the Ustasha is particularly accurate and enlightening.

Mr. West depicts the legendary marshall in a powerful and distinct manner, pointing out throughout most of his book that the unity and stability of Yugoslavia after WWII stemmed from Tito's forward-looking political philosophy, putting aside the wanton carnage of Ustasha and Cetnik militias and focusing in the rebuilding of a nation surrounded by suspicion and devastation.

By overcoming Churchill's Machiavelian realpolitik and Stalin's carnivorous vacuum filler, Tito galvanized a Communist nation into unparalleled prosperity and experimented on a system without precedents. Truly, his death catapulted the land of Southern Slavs into the demise and bloodshed of the 1990s, Yugoslavia lacking leaders with character, vision and charisma to resume his political -if not economic - masterpiece. A book well-written and well-researched recommended for the historian and current affairs hound alike.

Noel Malcolm attempts to provide a general overview of history of Bosnia in this highly acclaimed work. Though a serious scholarly work on this subject has yet to appear, as of 1999, this book is by far the best guide to Bosnian history. Despite the fact that it is overtly polemical and biased against nationalist histories that fueled the genocide against the Bosnian Muslims, it still remains a considerable work whose main strengths are its lucid stye and its wealth of information.

Malcolm's BOSNIA: A SHORT HISTORY is an outstanding work. The book shows the range of Bosnian history and the rich complexity and texture of its various religions. It puts into perspective the savage attack on Bosnia, both by nationalist militias and by propagandist media within the former Yugoslavia.

Particularly impressive is the discussion of the Bosnian Church, which brings into a clear and accessible language the breakthroughs by Balkan and Western historians on early Bosnian Church history. Malcolm demolishes the mythologized history of the Serbian and Croatian militias by showing that the patterns of conversion in Bosnia were historically complex. He refutes the notion that present day Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims are derived in a straight pattern of blood descent from the 15th century. Indeed, there were large-scale conversions back and forth throughout the history of Bosnia.

This is no abstract scholarly debate. The stereotype that present-day Bosnian Muslims are descendants of "traitors" in the 15th century who betrayed Christianity is a key element in the attack on Bosnia and also a part of the mythology of "age old hatreds" promulgated by the architects of ethnic-cleansing and adopted by some Western policy makers and journalists.

Malcolm shows that Bosnia was for 500 years, despite its many tensions and wars, a successful civilization with different religions that engaged each other in complex ways far beyond the cliches of age-old hatreds.

This book is recommended for anyone who cares about the Balkans or who wishes to understand the stakes involved in the struggle against "ethnic cleansing."

Malcolm's analysis of the radical Serbian nationalism in Belgrade was unfortunately dismissed by some British political leaders and intellectuals. The horrors in Kosovo today are a tragic vindication of his analysis. Those who dismissed him with a facile refusal to acknowledge an unwelcome message, are left brutal evidence of what they denied.

Malcolm no doubt, and all of us, wish he had been wrong--or at least that his warnings, stated with such cogency and scholarly accuracy, had been heeded. There is still time to read this book now and allow the history of Bosnia to come through the smoke of genocide, ethnic-cleansing, and desires for religous apartheid based on historically false and destructive mythologies of age-old hatreds.

Being a Bosnian, I find this book highly valuable and unusually accurate. As my fellow Bosnian Adnan Mesic pointed out in his review, this is a very accurate and comprehensive account of Bosnian history. I agree with Adnan that it is a shame that the most lucid and most importantly unbiased book was written by an American. Malcolm divulges in his book major historical events which may have contributed to the war in Bosnia. It is clear that Malcolm had conducted a meticulous research before he completed this book; this is highly evident from the great number of references which are included. All in all, this is an indispensable reference that will provide an important insight into the history of Bosnia. Strongly recommended.

The book The Endgame is a well-written piece of investigative literature that has obviously been carefully developed and researched. A piece of work that is this in-depth can never be 100% accurate, but Mr. Rohde has been able to capture the beliefs, attitudes and forces behind the terrible civil war in Bosnia. I have done years of scholarly research on this subject and know that the horrific acts discussed in this book are to the most extent true and often typical of what occurred in Bosnia. Mr. Rohde presents the reader with evidence that is not only based on victim accounts but also on the statements and facts from largely independent sources. Mr. Rohde does more than a capable job of presenting the evidence to the reader and allowing the reader to form his/her own judgements. And he has been able to do this in a situation that is very emotional and contentious. On a personal note, I know of Muslims that have lost innocent family members and have recounted those stories to me. Unfortunately, these accounts are not just a part of a propaganda machine but are real losses to real people.

Brilliantly written and meticulously documented, with extensive notes about the sources, this book reads in one go and rewards the reader with a 'multi-dimensional' picture of the horrible events in Srebrenica providing also a social and political frame that will bring closer and elucidate the complexity of the war in the former Yugoslavia. Real-life characters are described vividly, one gains impressions about their character, reasoning and motivation. For one of the episodes mentioned in the book, that took place in Zagreb, I have a first-hand experience and was amazed how accurate and live Rohde's descriptions were. Srebrenica is a tragedy for the Dutch as well and as a foreigner living in the Netherlands I am glad that the role of the Dutch UN contingent was also documented with all their limitations and frustrations from acting within the framework of the United Nations. The truth is never "in black & white" and this book provides a number of colors and nuances in-between that will help you understand not only the tragedy of Bosnian war but a tragedy of ignorance mixed with indifference that was spreading like a cancer through the West, and elsewhere, with a shallow notion that all this was happening 'light-years' away in some far away, forgotten country, whereas in actuality it was all only couple of hours on a flight from world metropolis.

Several maps included in the book will help you follow the ten-day period and progression of the events this book describes. One of the protagonists, Drazen Erdemovic, was in the meantime sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Browsing through some of the (public) court documents on ICTY's web site provides a good opportunity if you're looking to expand your knowledge of the subject, especially since another Srebrenica protagonist - R. Krstic, a Bosnian Serb army officer promoted to the rank of general in June 1995, who commanded the units of the Drina Corps of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) that shelled Srebrenica and attacked the UN observation posts - is currently on trial.

This is a well-written, journalistic account of the fall of the Srebrenica safe haven in Bosnia in July 1995. The story is told from many viewpoints, including Bosniacs, Serbs and Dutch UN troops. The Dutch battalion looks criminally negligent in its inability to stop a Serb force that barely exceeded four tanks, 200 infantry and a few mortars, from overrunning the town. Serb and Bosniac tactical abilities also appear sloppy; Serbs fought a 9 to 5 war and then went home and got drunk. The UN sat on its hands and did as little as possible. The maps in this book are excellent. The only weakness of Rohde's account is a certain ignorance of military affairs, which impacts upon the portayal of Serb and Dutch relative capabilities. Once the town falls, the face of evil struts onto David Rohde's stage in the form of General Ratko Mladic, who lies to the press while ordering the massacre of hundreds of prisoners. While the exact total number of Muslims who died as a result of the fall of Srebrenica remains uncertain, Rohde does yeoman work in piecing together the final moments of hundreds of the victims. If anyone cannot undertsand why Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are indicted war criminals, read this book.

The author presents a personal accounting of his time as SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander, Europe). Clark's writing style is very easy to read -- you don't need to be a military expert to understand him. This account is chronological, even sometimes hour-by-hour, and reports on how we got into a war in Kosovo, and why certain key decisions were made.

You will be amazed at the revelations Clark makes about Serbian security and intelligence capabilities, Milosovic's character (or lack thereof), tensions within NATO, and the complexities of US military operations. I could hardly put this book down.

Sometimes, however, the book reads as a personal defense. He often blames problems with negotiations or operations on higher-ups, or on inherent structrual problems with the SACEUR position. Any reader should know that many people in the military do not view Wesley Clark with high esteem, and blame many of the problems during Kosovo specifically on him. I personally found Clark's version of events generally believable, but I wait for history to pass the final judgement.

General Clark has penned a fascinating account of how the military statesman builds a coalition with world support, receives the proper authorization through a(n) multi-national organization such as NATO and gains United Nations Security Council approval for a military action. The action in question stopped the slaughter of ethnic Albanians and provided humanitarian relief in the Balkans. General Clark cut his teeth working with our allies on the Dayton Peace Accords which brought peace to Bosnia. He used this experience in crafting the necessary political /military action in Kosovo. I am convinced that General Clark may have been the only leader who could have mastered the multi lateral and vertical chains of command and human contacts necessary to accomplish this mission. This was a miracle endeavor which saved many thousands of lives and serves as a lesson for those involved in future multi-national military operations.

General (retired) Clark writes an excellent piece on both the events leading up to our entry into Kosovo and the continued decline of the American warrior spirit.

I served seven months in Kosovo with KFOR 1B on Camp Monteith. General Clark's book answers many of the questions we all had while patrolling the trash strewn streets of Kosovo, "Why the hell are we here?". General Clark gives a great lead up to the Serbian aggression in Kosovo and the Albanian provocations which we once again see in Macedonia. His thoughts are well written and easy to read. Starting with the Dayton peace accords, which he was a key player in, Clark takes us through the twisted negotiations and difficulties of the Balkans. His story shows the inherent difficulties in coalition warfare and how I (and thousands of other soldiers) eventually arrived to put "boots on the ground." The other interesting aspect of this book is to watch how the military was severely restricted, almost to the point of endangering American lives, to protect a weak and unclear political agenda. Not only did General Clark have to fight Serbs, NATO, the air power pundits and the media, he also had to fight against his leadership in SecDef Cohen. A great read and interesting story about NATOs first war. Lets hope we never have to go through an experience like the Kosovo Campaign again. Buy this book. You'll throughly enjoy it! -CPT S