There is certainly no shortage of books on the former Yugoslavia, some simply awful and some quite good. this is one of the better written, and the authors are respected academics. Interesting thesis, not entirely original, but sufficiently intersting to be worth the purchase price.

The Black Book of Bosnia is not a reference book. Nor is it a summary of the events and actions that occured in the war. Rather, it is an interesting variety of social commentary put together in one place.

In any war today, a variety of correspondents are distributed to the region. This book is a compilation of essays brought in by several well-known correspondents or commentators, including Arthur Miller.

What is great about this book is the diversity of opinions as well as scenarios that are brought to us by the contributors. Some talk about the reasons the war came about, while others focus on effects on Europe, and the United States. Perhaps the most important essays are those that discuss the big reason that almost any recent conflict in Europe came to be....nationalism. Filled with insight, and evidence, this book brings a different perspective to what most of us just know from CNN or the Nightly News. By bringing us closer to the war by describing problems the common citizens of Bosnia see, it may strike a personal chord with some of us.

Several essays in this book bring about how truly pathetic and tragic the war really was. One of the most saddening was one essay by Slavenka Drakulic who commented about the destruction of the Mostar Bridge, a monument that had stood since the invasion by the Ottomans. In these few lines, the full destruction of the war is captured.

A book by the writers and authors of the New Republic, this book was enjoyable mostly because of how well written the essays in it were, but also because of how much information they brought out. Why this book differs from several others is mostly because it is not just hard, cold facts, but rather opinion and insight that give it more depth than several others.

I would reccomend this book to anyone to anyone who is interested on looking at the conflict in Bosnia at a deeper level.

Chandler's book is an outstanding analysis and critique of the political/administrative system set up in Bosnia-Herzegovina after the signing of the Dayton Accords in late 1995. There is a very useful breakdown of the (too numerous) power structures at work in the country, from the 'local entity' governments of the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska to the astoundingly confusing layers of international administrative bodies and organizations. The rather obvious result is that little gets accomplished with all of these parallel governing institutions in place. Chandler's central argument is that the deep involvement of the international powers in Bosnia through the Office of the High Representative, NATO, the OSCE and other bodies is actually making matters worse, rather than laying down the foundations for peaceful coexistence and Bosnian self-government. In this vein, for these international institutions the process of "democratization" has become an end to itself rather than the ideal objective of establishing a functioning democracy that would require no international tutelage. Chandler also correctly points out that the Dayton Accords, although declaratively committed to a multiethnic, unified Bosnian state, have in fact solidified the country's division into ethnically-based units. However, the book is less persuasive where it implies that a major withdrawal of international troops would not necessarily mean a resumption of hostilities. Indeed, Chandler focuses very little attention to the mutual fear, mistrust and hatred which escalated in the early 1990s and led to the war in the first place. Nonetheless, this is a very useful, and damning, overview of an international experiment in peace-making and state-building - a must-read for anyone interested in Bosnia's future.

It is hard to imagine what good exists in the Yugoslavian crisis. This book highlights an important part of the Bosnian story, all too overlooked. The book is both interesting and compelling, drawing us in by its simplicity and the surprise that there really is hope. World citizens have a responsibility to understand the issues in what makes our world fall apart, and how it gets put back together. This book helps us to do both.

An important documentary source-book, with full transcripts of the 1993 hearings which led to the International Court making a provisional court order demanding that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 'take all measures... to prevent commission of the crime of genocide' by forces it supported in Bosnia. Also containing important evidence of the negotiations over the Owen-Stoltenberg plan, which would have divided Bosnia into three quasi-states

Dov Ronen's book is a stimulating account of the unfolding of the Yuugoslav crisis. His special strength is in providing a narrative account of ethnic mobilization and the outbreak of violent ethnic conflict. Through this account he is able to convincingly divorce nationalist political mobilization from overgeneralized commonplace notion of "ancient ethnic hatred" - so widespread in the literature on Yugoslavia. As a professor of history, I will definitely assign this book to my students.

Ronen's book is not only eminently well argued but also outstanding in its careful usage of terminology. He should be specially applauded for surveying the historical roots of the term "ethnic cleansing". Not having done a survey myself, I take Ronen's conclusions at face value: in recent times the first instance of using the term in English occured in 1991 (p. 96.) and the context was, of course, Yugoslavia. As historian of the 20th century however, I would like to provide one small edition to the history of the term, based on Inis L. Claude's seminal work entitled: National Minorities, An International Problem (Harvard University Press, 1955). On p. 98. Claude tells us that On 15 December 1944, the British Prime Minister Wiston Churchill told the House of Commons that contemplated revisions of Poland's borders would involve the "shifting" of several millions of people, and added: "expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause enless trouble. (...) A clean sweep will be made." Claude is, of course, quick to cite Churchill's subjective remark explaining how the terrible toll the British had to pay in the Second World "numbed" his sensitivity to certain "drastic solutions". Indeed, under Chrurchill's historic leadership the British people became the moral heroes of that terrible war standing up to Nazi Germany earlier than any other nation except the Poles. That Chruchill's suggestion of a "clean sweep" in which the German-inhabited areas of the future, victorious Poland would be "swept clean" of Germans should relate to precisely that other country which, besides Britain, chose to stand up to Hitler rather than accept defeat without a fight, is understandable. Nonetheless, the fact remains that Churchill drew the most pessimistic and extreme lesson from the war, namely that nation states cannot be expected to provide a "common roof" for ethnic minorities, and, with this conclusion, he effectively encouraged, yes, the ethnic cleansing, of Germans and other minorities from Central and Eastern Europe. One could perhaps do a deeper survey of historical texts to detect other antecedents, most likely to be found in the literature advocating the conquest of Europe by the Germans. However, the reference to Chruchill remains a striking illustration of the sad fact that - at least in practice, if not in theory - the idea of ethnic cleansing has not been unthinkable in the 20th century even for democrats, not even for the greatest moral hero of the 20th century.

The author of this book is the son of an official of the government of royalist Bulgaria. Even though he states his story as unbiased, his defense of the Boris III leaves the reader wondering. Boris suceeded his father Ferdinand after the first World War. Boris was very inexperienced when he suceeded, and the government went from far left to far right. In the 1930s, a royal dictatorship was established by the King, and the government went to the far right. Throughout this story the author defends the King and lambasts the politicians. Eventually the country drifted into an alliance with Nazi Germany due to the economic and political situation in Europe. With the outbreak of World War II, the King chose to back Nazi Germany, and enlarge the territory of the country. This brought the country into conflict with the Allies, and the enslavement of the country by Soviet Russia. Boris III was not the evil ruler like Stalin and Hitler. His choice brought disaster to Bulgaria. The author's defense of the King is obvious. The book could have been more objective.

The author has an objective glance to the disorderand causes of disorder occured in Yugoslavia.Hesuccessfully combines the causes to the uncomfor- table history of Yugoslavia.One thus can get idea of history of Yugoslavia either.Reading the book gives an idea of the total annihilation of many innocence in "old" Yugoslavia...

This book is a study of that traditional trick of British diplomacy, partition. Dividing countries is a way of controlling them, before and after independence. The US and British states have divided Yugoslavia, then Bosnia, and now Kosovo. 'Ethnic' divisions suit imperialism. Carlos Westendorp, the High Representative in Bosnia, has said that Kosovo's warring factions must be told, "Kosovo doesn't belong to either of you. It's ours. It's the new empire. It's the new colonialism done in the name of the international community."

Kumar examines other examples of partition and addresses the difficulties of reversing it. For instance, Blair's bullying tactics have now stalled the Irish peace process. He set five deadlines for implementing the Good Friday Agreement; he blustered that 'there was no Plan B'. According to the Agreement, the IRA did not have to decommission its weapons: then Blair said they would, then he said they wouldn't. As long as the British Government has not set a date for withdrawal, all the Irish parties remain dependent on Britain, relating primarily to the British presence, either loving or hating the 'Brits'. Once the Government sets a date, then they will all have to focus on their common task of rebuilding their beautiful country.

In an ironic reversal, partition could now be visited upon Britain; the European Union is regionalising 'Euroland', to break up sovereign nation states. It fosters identity politics, puffing up cultural and regional identifications at the expense of class and national realities.

Kumar points out that the way to reverse partition is to achieve peace through development. But the US-British-EU aim of strengthening 'market democracy' cuts across this goal, because it generates divisions and inequalities. Every country needs to create a common commitment to a strategy of rebuilding; they each need a workers' nationalism to unite and liberate their country.

Despite its title, Denitch's analysis of the Yugoslav collapse is not so much a study of ethnic nationalism as such as it is a thorough, passionate and often personal look into the causes and consequences of Yugoslavia's break-up. Since he was a citizen of Yugoslavia, and also actively involved to some extent in the political events of the early 1990s, Denitch generally discards with the customary cold, academic aloofness and feigned impartiality and tells the reader squarely where he stands on issues such as nationalism, the war in Yugoslavia, the events that led to the country's destruction, etc. This makes the text all the more interesting, as he offers very fascinating, if not sometimes controversial, views and insights into recent Yugoslav history and the ethic politics which hold sway in the Yugoslav successor states. His analysis of Yugoslavia's failure to progress into a pluralist democracy, despite being THE European socialist state most likely to do so in the late 1980s, is very interesting: he notes that the fatal flaw made by Tito and the ruling communists was to decentralize the country's decision-making processes rather than democratizing its political scene. His opinion of nationalism is, needless to say, very disparaging, and his intent in this book is to warn that ethnic nationalism and identity politics in today's world are an enemy to democracy everywhere, not just in the former Yugoslavia or the formerly communist Eastern Europe, but throughout the world, including the developed, allegedly rational and post-nationalist West. Regardless of what one thinks of Denitch's standpoint, this is definitely an important book to read for a better understanding of Yugoslavia's break-up and the problems that still plague the region today.