The author Rezak Hukanovic is a Bosnian Muslim living in a small city of Prijedor. As the country Yugoslavia breaks apart, an independent republic Bosnia emerges. The Serbs act on this and take over some cities such as Prijedor. The Serbs round up the Muslim and Croat males and put them in concentration camps. Even though Rezak has some friends who are Serbs and he is apolitical, he is put in the same camp as all the others.
First the Serbs rob them of their possessions. Then they rob them of their humanity. The Serbs torture and execute their victims, even though they knew them in a prior life. Rezak details all these dispictable crimes committed on the Muslims and Croats. Even though humanity stated never again after the killing of the Jews in WWII, Rezak details that most of humanity just stood and watched what happened in Bosnia to the Muslims and Croats. This is a good short read.

Journalist Rezak Hukanovic's very short book about his experiences in the captivity of the Serbs is a harrowing reminder of how cruel people can be, even in this day and age when educated people tend to think such inhumanity is behind us. How, in the shadow of the Holocaust, can people convince themselves it's okay to act this way? Hukanovic does not know and does not pretend to know -- he simply reports the facts of his captivity and the monstrous depravities he witnessed and suffered.

The book stumbles into near-banality whenever Hukanovic does anything other than straightforward reporting of the facts. Perhaps this is due to difficulty of translation; perhaps it is just because any philosophical musing or attempts at poetry seem ludicrously flimsy in the face of the events reported. But almost all of the book is simple reporting of true occurrences. Technique is beside the point when the events themselves have the power of a waking nightmare.

There are still people who believe things like what happened to Hukanovic are impossible -- that no one could behave so reprehensibly towards other humans. Those people should read this book. Perhaps the knowledge that this sort of thing was happening in 1992 will awaken them and they will join the ranks of those, like the International Red Cross monitors Hukanovic lauds for mitigating his own plight, who try to ameliorate such horrors rather than ignore them.

THE TENTH CIRCLE OF HELL does not provide much background on the circumstances in Bosnia-Herzegovina that led Rezak Hukanovic and other residents of Prijedor being forced into a death camp, but the exact context is not especially important. As one reads about the real horrors behind the rather antiseptic phrase "ethnic cleansing," it is enough to know that this happened in the last decade of the twentieth century. People should keep memories such as Hukanovic's in mind the next time they wonder whether the civilized world ought ever to intervene in the "internal affairs" of other countries.

This is a hard book to rate, for any number of reasons. For one thing, it's not nicely rounded; it doesn't tell a complete story, but provides a blistering snapshot of a small slice of history and an investigation still in process. For another, its photos and text don't work closely together, but provide approximately parallel looks into the same awful tale. Hardest of all is the stunning vividness of the photography by Gilles Peress, and the nagging suspicion that we share some small portion of blame for this.

Simply put, _The Graves_ is a collection of photographs of dead bodies and skeletons, the anonymous mass graves from which they were exhumed, the remnants of their clothing and contents of their pockets, the relatives that survived them; and a text that describes the painstaking and horrifying process of trying to identify them and divine how they came to die.

Srebenica and Vukovar are two towns in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, where in July of 1995, hundreds of Muslim men -- unarmed, defenseless, and bound -- were apparently shot by soldiers of the Serbian army under Ratko Mladic and then bulldozed under mounds of earth.

Five years later, most of those responsible still roam freely in the former Yugoslavia, though the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague steadily sifts evidence and issues warrants for their arrest. This book depicts some of the effort to establish evidence of their guilt ... and is itself damning evidence.

The photos by Peress, all black and white, are horridly beautiful in their mute, pinpoint clarity. They record a creepy new form of archaeology, where shiny white teeth peek out of the dirt, leg bones remain encased in socks and athletic shoes, entire bodies rise out of the near past, shorn of flesh but still comfortably clothed. They could be ancient remains, and one struggles to comprehend that they were alive, page after page of them, not very long ago.

Stover's text gives some historical context for these graphic images, records the testimony of surviving witnesses, and offers brief portraits of the men and women -- forensic pathologists, archaeologists, x-ray technicians -- who sift through this grisly treasure. Peress also photographs them at work, relaxing with a guitar, and the waiting, anxious families with their charity canned goods and stuffed toys.

This is a stark, stolid book, one that serves as a necessary reminder that what happens on the other side of the planet matters, and that no matter how much relative attention we give them, some things are worse than being sent back to Cuba to live with one's father. Much worse.

Stover and Peress, through searing words and photographs, have created a record of the two greatest war crimes in the conflicts that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. The sack of the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991 by Serb forces, and the subsequent mass murder of over 200 patients and staff from the local hospital is still a powerful and pivotal event, not only because of the sheer magnitude of the atrocity, but also because it was the first. Vukovar came before the siege of Sarajevo, the rape and torture camps in Prijedor and Foca and elsewhere, before the destruction of Mostar bridge, and the massacre at Srebrenica. Vukovar set the standard for the atrocities that were to come, and eight years after its destruction, the town is still a hollowed-out ruin with weeds poking through shattered buildings and one-fourth of its prewar population clinging precariously to subsistence in a destroyed economy. The siege and fall of Bosnia's Srebrenica in 1995, engineered by indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic has been amply documented elsewhere, but this book is not a military history or the reconstruction of the crime. Rather it is about the search for the missing and the identification of bodies pulled from mass graves. The authors follow the forensic specialists, the anthropologists and physicians who have created a sad but necessary specialty in this field. The exhumations are part of the search for the truth, not only for the half-grieving, half-hopeful survivors who cling to rumors about their loved ones, but for all people of compassion who hope that finding some finality, and perhaps some justice, at the bottom of these graves will serve both the living and the dead. The exhumations and identifications are carried out according to strict forensic standards so the results can be used as evidence at the Hague war crimes tribunal. If we are to forge any positive legacy from these atrocities, it may lie in allowing the children of both the victims and the executioners to lead normal lives, free from fear and revenge and poisonous hatred. Memories are long in this region, and vengeance can take decades. The woman who runs an orphanage for young Srebrenica survivors observes, "What is important now is the message the international community sends to these boys and what they then tell their own children. If you say to a child, 'Look, that man there killed your father, and now he lives in your house.' What kind of message is that going to send? But if you say, 'That man killed your father and that is why he is in prison.' The message is very different. So, for now, there might not be a lot of hatred or revenge, but if we don't find a way to punish those responsible for these crimes, it will surely be something we can count on in the future." To date, neither Mladic nor the "Vukovar Three" are in the tribunal's custody. For the children's sake, we can do better.

This is an amazing book, detailing evidence collection by the ICTY war crimes tribunal at two mass grave sites - Srebrenica, a predominantly Muslim town in eastern Bosnia; and Vukovar, a mixed Serb-Croat town in eastern Croatia (contrary to the view of the previous reviewer, Vukovar is neither Muslim nor Bosnian). The photos are phenomenal. After a wrenching reading, one comes away with a few scattered thoughts. Namely: 'never again, and 'thank god there is an international tribunal to carry out prosecutions for these events when domestic courts are unwilling to do so'.

There have now been two ICTY indictees arrested for Srebrenica, the trial is ongoing as of this writing. None of the 'Vukovar Three', reportedly hiding out in Belgrade have been arrested yet.

Justice is far too slow. But at least with the ICTY, there is some chance for a bit of justice after all.

(...). I had always towed the party line about the evil Serbs and their misdeeds, but have changed my tune after reading this enlightening, if disturbing book. Some may accuse Chomsky of being an apologist for Serb atrocities, but it is clear after reading this text that all sides, most notably NATO, were engaged in quite troublesome behavior that cost many thousands of lives. I heard Bill O' Reilly dismiss Chomsky as a "revisionist," and it is sadly interesting that most critics of this and similar works simply stick a "communist", "liberal", or "revisionist" label on the author without ever addressing the points made within the work. If you are looking for a wealth of facts on deceitful and imperialist American policy in Serbia/Yugoslavia and Indonesia/East Timor, I doubt if a better source could be found.

Here Chomsky compares and contrasts the responses of western governments (specifically, those of Clinton's USA and Blair's Britain) to two instances of "ethnic cleansing", both of which received extensive media attention at the end of the millennium. In Kosovo, there was NATO intervention, a 78-day bombing campaign, and a much-publicised war crimes tribunal; in East Timor, at the very most, a few regretful shakes of the head and perhaps the suspicion that we are not, as yet, quite living up to our high ideals of truth, justice and liberty. Chomsky collates some of the facts underlying this apparent irony and shows that, as usual, the paradox has a rather simple solution. For example: (1) The indictment against Milosevic confines itself largely to crimes committed after the bombing began; it seems logical to assume that (a) "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo was not a major motivation for the bombing, and (b) any crimes committed before the bombing are not a major concern of our new generation of moral crusaders. Nevertheless, on the grounds that they sanctioned and participated in "ethnic cleansing", Milosevic and his cronies have been routinely portrayed as the worst enemies of human life and moral decency since Adolf Hitler. (2) The 1999 massacre in East Timor (much advertised in advance as the inevitable consequence if a referendum concerning independence from Indonesia should go the wrong way) was the latest episode in an extremely well-documented record of slaughter dating from the Indonesian invasion of 1975. All the atrocities, including the accession to power of the Indonesian leader Suharto in 1965, with its attendant third of a million casualties, were carried out with western backing and with US armament and training. The solution to that paradox, then, is obvious: the west has, as is traditional, no problem with genocide just so long as it's done by the right people. Chomsky is adept at drawing out the salient points (e.g. the timing of the Serbian war crimes indictment noted above) from voluminous and often skewed information; and, as befits a scientist, his sources of evidence are painstakingly documented. The focus on two contrasted sets of events throws the Standards of the West into sharp and unpleasant perspective.

Chomsky uses the NATO bombing of Milosevic as a framework for analyzing the direction of Western foreign policy, specifically in East Timor. While NATO (remember, not UN) forces were destroying non-military targets and infrastructure in the name of a "just cause", US sponsored paramilitaries were rampaging through E Timor slaughtering thousands. It is the awareness of this hypocrisy (as well as the well documented FACT that NATO bombing would worsen the humanitarian crisis it was designed to alleviate) that forms the framework for his analysis. With recent events in the world (easy to predict for those of us who actually know our own foreign policy, our history, and the history of the regions and people in question) Chomsky is one of the few, non PC, intellectuals who are willing to actually hold their own nation to the standards that we hold other nations to. Not surprisingly, CNN, Fox, and the other worthless entertainment disseminators masquerading as flag-waving "news" outlets refuse to cover the obvious issues raised by Chomsky (or Zinn, Fisk, Pilger, Nader, Roy, Herman, Said; the list is much to long to list). Oh well, its just the bodies and misery of the "evildoers" (read: Bush Daddy's old friends who no longer know their place) that are piling up in the name of corporate US hegemony. Also, beware of negative reviews like the one above (nothing wrong with negative reviews, but it woiuld be nice if they would at least attempt to deal with and refute Chomsky's thesis) that quote passages completely out of context.

The book was very disturbing to me. I could not believe what I was reading....I have not ever read such a racist book as this one written by Mrs. Huntley. I was very surprised that a person of her age, education, and experience could write and take such a closed minded and racist approach as she did. Many points in this book are inaccurate and simply lies. Throughout the book, she doesn't support her statements and I am sure that even if she tried, she could not. I believe that there is not one entry in her journal where she is not badmouthing Serbs. Even more so, not only is she demonizing Serbs for what happened in Kosovo in '98-'99, but she is even denying much of their history and pride. On the contrary, she very rarely (almost never) accuses Kosovar Albanians for what they had done to Serbs (and still are doing as we speak, due to inadequate protection from the UN forces of few Serbs who are brave enough to stay or unable to leave). A few times, she does mention atrocities that were done by Kosovar Albanians, but then she almost justifies their behavior by explaining that they have done this or that because of what Serbs did to them beforehand to provoke this kind of behavior. What double standard! I could go on-and-on and on about the book and Mrs. Paula, but there is nothing nice that I could say about her or about the book. The reason is her constant demonization of Serbs, usually with no evidence at all (almost all of her judgments and thoughts are based on stories from her students who are Kosovar Albanians who certainly are not objective). In addition, I do not understand what kind of person she is for further instigating hate between Albanians towards Serbs, Serbs towards Albanians, and even the rest of the world towards Serbs. As a rational and peace loving person, I believe that you'll understand my dissatisfaction with the book.

Dr. Michael Perenti, Yale graduate in political science, who has done extensive research on the topic and also visited Yugoslavia after the NATO bombing ended is someone you should read if you are interested in the subject. He wrote a book called, "To Kill a Nation" and is very good reading with finally some justification/support for what he writes.

After having a similar experience myself in Croatia
in 1998 the author has really captured what this kind of teaching experience is all about.

I found it to be a perfect introduction to Kosovo - it fills the gap of travel and history books by giving a REAL feel for the experience of living and working in Kosovo.

Paula Huntley's remarkable journal of her eight months as a volunteer English teacher in Kosovo is that rare thing: A sympathetic, even loving look at the victims of war - in this case Kosovar Albanians - that does not at the same time demonize those in whose name the war was waged - in this case, the Serbs. Indeed, Huntley reminds us that racial, ethnic or national stereotyping, and the notions of collective guilt and collective innocence that accompany such stereotyping, is frequently at the heart of violence. In a journal entry that recounts her students' unwillingness to believe that any Albanian could have been responsible for the bus bombing that had just killed many Serbian civilians, Huntley comments, "Nor, I expect, do most Serbs believe that fellow Serbs could have committed atrocities in Bosnia or Kosovo."

Huntley's reminds us not only of our differences, but of our similarities, and of the common humanity that connects us to each other. Her deep belief in the power of human connection is the thread that winds throughout this lovely, moving book.

Overall the book is a great read. It's clear that the author spent some time in Bosnia and is familiar with her material. Unfortunately there are many typos in the English portion of the book, as well as misspellings in the names of local people or places (Ceca, Konjic, et al) The portions on Rwanda are pretty skimpy. I liked the book, but the obvious sloppiness makes me wonder how many of her other facts are just thrown in without checking.

Sadly, it must be reported that Elizabeth Neuffer died last week, while covering the war in Iraq. May she be at peace.

I just finished The Key To My Neighbor's House. Being a survivor of the Bosnian war of 1992, this book really brought some sense of justice and understanding for me. I've read many books about the war in Bosnia, but none were as accurate as The Key To My Neighbor's House. Most of the books I've read about the war in Bosnia mostly focus on the political side of the war. The Key To My Neigbor's House tells the real,true story behind the Bosnian war of 1992. Elizabeth Neuffer got the real story from the real people. Most authors would've gotten their information from the political figures or some sort of high ranking officials, but not Elizabeth Neuffer. I've learned a lot from this book, even though I went through the whole war experience, but there was a lot I didn't know. I would like to thank Elizabeth Neuffer for risking her life to write this book. I really appreciate all of her hard work. I would recomend this book to anyone wanting to learn the real sory behind the war in Bosnia and Rwanda.

I have read Drakulic's later book Balken Express, and thought this book far better. Drakulic's book is a series of essays about the difficulty of life in Eastern Europe from a woman's perspective. Communism collasped because it could not satisfy the demands of the population. Drakulic details many of those shortcomings in her book. Not only did Communism produce poor paint and bad toilet paper, it did not even produce tampons or other products for women. That is why Communism failed. Few history books will detail this perspective, but from a humanistic point of view, it is true.
The other perspective Drakulic tries to point out is that of a journalist pointing to the failures of both Communist and Western society. Drakulic portrays the homeless of NYC with the fact that in Communist society everybody is poor but not homeless. These perspectives are needed as well, because some aspects of Communism were indeed noble.
A good book about the failure of Communism. This book was a short informative read about a doomed political system.

A fascinating collection of poignant vignettes on being a woman in communist Yugoslavia (with stories of the author's friends and acquaintances in other Eastern European countries.) Ms. Drakulic shares with the West the reasons whereby 40-plus years of communist-engendered habits and viewpoints and tendencies cannot undergo an overnight "attitude adjustment". This book is a must for anyone who seeks to begin to sympathize and understand the thoughts and roots of people (especially women) who were born and raised in Eastern Europe. I bulldozed through it, and am now reading her "Cafe Europa". Eye-opening!

I will read this eye-opening book again and again. Historical accounts of communism can't paint the picture that this book has painted. This reads like poetry and is real.

Robert Wilcox follows the aviatiors of VF-41, a navy F-14 fighter squadron, as they learn a new brand of war in the skies over Kosovo in the spring air war of 1999. Though much of "Black Aces" (the title refers to VF-41's nickname) tells the same legends of naval aviation that I've read since about 1987, it does cover an important moment in the history of the F-14. Though the plane is on its way out (the Navy has already begun phasing out the earliest models, with the plane to completely exit operations by 2010), F-14's were given a late-in-life new mission of ground attack, probably meant to fill the gap between the already phased out A-6 Intruder and the not-yet-ready for primetime F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet". Equipped with laser and infra-red sensors, and armed with laser-glide bombs, Tomcat crews - pilots and radar-intercept officers - scour the hilly, forested terrain of the former Yugoslavia for Serb forces. Flying from the USS Roosevelt, Tomcats pass the mouth of the Adriatic (off the "heel" of Italy) and into Kosovo. Unfortunately, not fighting a true war, Serb forces don't attack or hide out in the open before they sweep into Kosovar-Albanian enclaves, forcing the American fliers to rely on their sensors and no-small degree of detective work to locate the enemy. For Tomcat crews, their eventual success is bittersweet: their ability adapting Tomcats to strike roles (for decades, the F-14 was a dedicated interceptor, more singular in that role than F-16 or F-15 fighters that were equipped with ground attack weapons) will do less to earn the aging fighter a reprieve than validate and pave the way for the plane that will replace it. Wilcox doesn't hint much at the "Supre Hornet" and doesn't begin to approach the controversy that the F-14 v. F/A-18E debate has reportedly ignited among naval aviation professionals. (On the last page, Wilcox mentions Super Hornet in glowing words - it's the plane of the future.)

In telling his story, Wilcox follows the planes and pilots of VF-41 - from the "Hinges" (senior pilots) to the "Nuggets" (untested and sometimes not quite proficient new guys). Wilcox reveals the pressures that nearly crush the senior pilots - who must battle the poor weather and the F-14's poor serviceability as much the enemy. He also reveals the faults (and strengths) of the nuggets - at least one of whom appear to be using regulations as an excuse for their less-than-aggressive flying. Wilcox gets very close to his pilots - quoting them almost word for word. You get a sense, as he recalls individual statements - that
there's more going on then even he understands, even if he gets enough to encapsulate some thoughts in brackets. The writing is also embarassingly bad in spots - with Wilcox often summarizing a paragraph or completing a thought with a single-sentence paragraph that makes the book sound less like a history of war than a first-grade reader. Organization could also have been improved - Wilcox starts describing the faults and strengths of a Nugget - only to tangent into another pilot before giving closure to the initial assessment of the first. We also learn fairly late in the story that one of the F-14 pilots had transitioned from the A-6, the vintage carrier-strike jet whose role the F-14 was now trying to fill. You'd think that pilot's experience would have made him a prominent member of the squadron - but not to Wilcox.

"Aces" has the feeling of a rush job. Wilcox accompanied the Roosevelt doubtlessly knowing as much as the rest of us that the 9/11 attacks would reduce the Kosovo war to a blip on the minds of many Americans. He reminds us that the F-14 can be a trying plane or that landing on aircraft carriers at night or in poor weather can be an ordeal rivaling combat, but he doesn't take us inside the minds of those pilots. Wilcox likely thought that he had already done as much to humanize his pilots by showing them lose their temper, miss targets, get chewed out by superiors or by displaying questionably unagressive tendancies for a fighter pilot - and had to "balance" things to stay in the Navy's good graces. The result is that we a get a sense that it's a challenge to fly the F-14, but not
why.

I just finished reading Black Aces High and thought it was outstanding. I read the entire book in one sitting and it was fantastic.
I was an F-18 pilot on that cruise and while the book concentrated more on the Tomcat than the Hornet, it accuratly portrayed the the missions and development of some fairly advanced tactics in SCAR.
The action in Kosovo was much more intese than Iraq.
In addition I was pretty close to most of the guys in the book and he really captured their personalities.
Sometimes the truth needs some embellishment to make an interesting story. However, this book was right on the mark, had no embellishment and was captivating.
Reading about the strikes in which I participated and the antics of squadron life brought back some great memories. Every squadron had a cast of characters that are pretty funny, but the VF-41 had a lot of larger than life personalities.
If you want an accurate portrayal of a squadron at war and the thoughts which pass through pilot's heads during combat, this is a great book.

Sincerely,
Kurt McClung
LCDR USN
VMFAT-101 (exchange F-18 instructor with the Marines)

Once in awhile a book comes along that cuts through all the hype and gets to the truth. Robert K. Wilcox's BLACK ACES HIGH is that kind of book. Shunning adulation and geewhiz approaches to our aviators on carriers, Wilcox takes us into the heart of a modern fighter squadron as it flys and fights over Kosovo, an important but somewhat forgotten conflict for our forces. However, the Black Aces paved the way for what was done in Afghanistan and what will be done in future airwars. The squadron is preparing to fight in Iraq. But in Kosovo, the Black Aces are thrown in to fight a war dictated by other people. The Black Aces have to learn on the job. The dangers are everywhere. They innovate, fight their fears, come up with new ways of hunting and killing. They don't have the benefit of ground spotters so must learn, almost like detectives, how to find their enemy, which is hidden and cunning. They end up being prime factors in the capitulation of the Serbian forces. Most importantly we learn in this book how the members of the squadron relate to each other and function as aerial fighters. It is fascinating to get behind the closed doors of a fighter squadron and see what really goes on. We see the personal lives of the pilots and air crews. There is even a love story. They are Americans to be proud of.

This is a must read for anyone who wants to see and understand how a carrier fighter squadron functions today in this Age of Terror. This is the new right stuff.

bad writting , fishy explanation of what happene

I may be biased because I have worked with Kemal but I have to say that I truly enjoyed this book. as an American I never fully understood what happened in Sarajevo- why it happened or the extent of the conflict over there. After reading this book I was rather ashamed that the rest of the world did nothing. Worse, we continue to allow atrocities to be perpetuated in that corner of the world. This book remains topical. Conflicts continue to erupt in the region and anyone who wants to speak intelligently on the subject, understand the story that's not in the news or would like to read about an un-sung hero, read this book. Kemal is presently working on a new book and reading this one would be a great starter. I would read this book over and over again. Its the story of people fighting for democracy and freedom (focused on freedom of the press) and the long bloody road that lay in front of them.

This memoir by the editor-in-chief of Oslobodjenje from 1991 to 1995 bears unrivalled witness to the resilience and survival of an operative civil society in Sarajevo under siege. Under Kurspahi 's editorship the paper came to symbolize the resistance of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its people to genocidal aggression and to terrible deprivation, while at the same time maintaining its journalistic integrity and critical independence when to do so was hard indeed. (This short review is from "Book on Bosnia" published by The Bosnian Institute)

I`m sure no reader will rate this review as helpful - negative reviews are never appreciated. But this is a very boring read, and makes the stabbing out to be the only remarkable event in Seles` life. There is plenty of wallowing in selfpity. Understandable about the stabbing, but the objections to her grunting, deaths of people in her life and every other bridge she has ever crossed in her life are written in meticulous detail so the reader is left in no doubt about what a hard life Seles has had.

I used to like Monica Seles before I read this book, but this nauseating read made me think otherwise. It is deservedly out of print.

I think Monica is the coolest tennis player of all time, with two fisted forehand and backhand, hitting the ball like cannon and always goes for the lines no matter she is leading or behind. From this book, you had a chance to know the other side of Monica. She is gracious, humane and always willing to give. She is just a great champion on and off the court. In contrast, you can also see the personalities of many top players. They are selfish and never showed symathy for Monica's tragedy . I learnt a lot from the book and understand why Monica was voted as the Sanex Hero of the year.

This is the best biography I have ever read! This is a MUST READ for all Monica Seles fans!

This is a unique look behind the conflict in Yugoslavia and the mythology created by Serb nationalists that fomented incredible crimes against humanity. He looks at the religious and cultural mythology created and revived by a warped interpretation of Balkan history that many nationalists used. I only wish this book was longer, it is a great read.

Michael Sells is a religion professor at Haverford College. His mother's family is Serbian American and some of his Serbian relatives were killed, missing, or living in refugee camps during the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims by the Serbs. He begins his preface with this sentence: "The story told here is not one I wish to believe or to tell."

He must be a person of great courage and clear-sightedness to tell this story, because he assembles the clear facts (but in a thoroughly riveting manner), and sets forth a water-tight argument for not only the atrocities perpetrated on the Bosnian Muslims (children raped and burned alive, civilians mutilated in death camps, entire villages massacred, former neighbors and friends conducting torture), but on Western indifference and refuge in the old refrain, "Oh, they've been fighting for hundreds of years, can't do anything to help them," and "they've brought in on themselves" (which Thomas Friedman actually wrote in the NY Times).

The reality, Sells argues (from a scholarly viewpoint as well as from a personal point of view, since his relatives are Serbian), is that the various relgions and ethnic groups lived in a multireligious community for 500 years. The National Library, which the Serbs were so anxious to destroy, held Jewish and Muslim manuscripts and evidence of this multi-confessional co-existence. The whole idea of ancient conflicts was abused by the Serbs and presented as the reason. They must have loved it when we in the West bought it all, wholesale, and did nothing.

Sells also discusses the deliberate propaganda used by Milosevic. He says, imagine that Timothy McVeigh, who bombed Oklahoma City to save his Christian identity (he belonged to the Christian Identity movement, which advocated this) had control over the American media. Imagine that he started broadcasting fabricated stories of non-Christian hatred of Christians. Imagine the he got a high-level supporter in the U.S. military, who funded him and his cohorts with all the weapons they needed. Now imagine Milosevic in this scenario, and you have a good idea of how the Bosnian slaughter started.

Get this book! It's just incredible, and it clarifies a situation that we got very confused media information about at the time.

An excellent book that looks at the role of Serbian and partly Croatian church in creation of genocidal actions against Bosnia and its citizens. Excellent book. From a reader that has read hundreds of books on this topic, I would strongly recommend it as my number one choice.