A great intellectual reading, even thoug it might not appeal to the taste of nationalists in the balkans. As a Greek-American living in Greece during the Kosovo war, I was appalled at the huge pro-bias of the greek media toward Milosevic's regime and its crimes. This books goes along away to answer a lot of questions.

I witnessed even worse things during my 20 years in that country. Greece started moving into the area of political schizophrenia, business anarchy, and educational apathy when the former ideological supporters of Stalin and the USSR took over the media. How many people know that in the Greek media, the FED (Federal Reserve) of the U.S. was mentioned as "a group of Jewish banks"? How many people know that in the junior class of high-school back in 1985, students were taught in Greece that "Albania is an industrial country with mechanized agriculture"?. How many people know that Greeks propagate the strongest anti-American slogans in Europe? How many people know that Greeks were saying "they deserved it" for the Americans after Sep 11? How many people know that Greeks "boooed" the victims of Sep 11 in public stadiums the weekend after the attack? How many people know that Greeks, even in these days, write in their forums on the internet that "we wish that all Americans die like in Sep 11"? How many people know that the Greek singer Dalaras comes to the US giving concerts and at the end, each time, he mocks the US government and back in Greee he states that "Americans have murder in their DNAs", and then the Greek media supports his statements with journalists writing in major newspapers articles like "I hate America"? How many people know that Greek journalists stated during the war in Iraq that "Sadam Husein's mistake was that he didn't have any weapons of mass destruction to throw to the Americans"?

Things like that... and even worse...Takis Mihas is a very brave soul, and a cream of the crop journalist. His place should be near the top executives of World class media. In Greece, talented researchers and journalists' like Takis Mihas barely have the means to live comfortably, going AGAINST the general trend, speaking tghe truth, instead of chosing easy topics to make money... Takis Mihas describes a country which is exactly like the one I lived in for 22 years... and it's still going down. His writing follows the general writing trend in "modern" Greece, which is tense, highly argumentative, but he escapes controversies by remaining truthful and by insisting on the facts.

I would also highly recommend "The Black Book of Communism", a book that has been badly critisized only in Greece, a country which remains the last castle of fascist media and journalists who adore Stalin -- of course, a tourist would never even realize that, in the same way in which the ample sunshine covers mizery in Cuba. The beautiful landscape in Greece serves wonderfully as an excellent cover-up for the socio-political misery... the land of the "family values" (so the Americans believe) is the country that holds the No.1 position in illegal prostitution in the European Union... today's Parthenon is filled up with prostitutes from the former socialist countries, with drugs, thieves, political, economical and social anarchy.

History will soon be forgotten... however, books like these should be kept, so that our children know what happened, who caused it, and who supported it.

Thank God I'm not there anymore... there hasn't been a day ever since I left that I'm not grateful for all the freedoms, opportunities and mainly common sense (yes, compared to Greece even Afghanistan have more common sense and basic respect) that I enjoy in the U.S. ever since I came here.

PS. The head of the Greek church Christodoulos, supported indirectly the terrorists of Sep 11, by endorsing their geopolitical views... more on the internet.

Reading this book one is amazed at how the West still tolerates Greece's childish and irresposible behaviour in the Balkans.
The more I read about Greece the more I realize that it has no place in the EU or NATO. Not only did Greece condone the ethnic cleansing committed by Milosevic against the Albanians, Greece itself has been involved since it's creation in it's own ethnic cleansing of Chams and other Albanians in northern Greece not to mention the inhumane treatment of the Albanian emmigrants.

Embelished. Know inside story. Should NEVER have been shot down in the first place. Laundry list of errors on ground starting with basic rescue procedures.

This is a well researched book, but it is slow moving and got very boring at times. If you want to read the story from the folks who planned and executed the mission this is the book that tells their side, but it lacks a certain excitement. Capt O'Grady is quoted only a few times. I was surprised that certain mistakes made during the planning and execution of the rescue were disclosed.

As a wife of one the members of the TRAP mission it was great to finally read something about the men that risked their lives to save Capt. O'Grady. America views O'Grady as a hero, when in truth the Marines are the heros. Imagine, for a moment reading all of the quotes, from the men and not just reading a meaningless name, but actually remembering BBQs, nights out together, and watching their children grow before your eyes. This book gave an insight on the men. Everyone knows everything about O'Grady, but what do you know about the men that made it possible for him to live?

As a footnote: my husband (in the book Cpl Lindsey--he has continued his faithful service and has been promoted)doesn't not share my sentiments. He sees it as a job--that's what he is paid to do. He doesn't even like talking about it.
I am proud that names were put to the other key players in this story!

If was a marvelous book about NATO's unjustifiability in bombing a sovereign nation, Serbia. It paints a good portrait of Kosovar Albanians, and that they aren't peacful prairie dwellers. However, it would be nice to update this book, including the fact that the KLA, and its member are being funded and trained by Osama Bin Ladens networks. This book really covers every aspect of why this was an "unjust war". Every nation in the Balkans went through their nationalistic expansionistic era, unfortunately Albania didn't, and i guess they haven't learned from history either, so now they want a greater ALbania, and America supports this corrupt, undemocratic entity.

This book is crap and you can find out by the editorial review 'book description'. It says 'serbians have been fericious fighters against Hitler' - EXCUSE ME??? - 'What you know in comparison of what you dont - is nothing' - READ PHILIP J. COHEN's BOOK 'SERBIA's SECRET WAR' and then you'll get to learn how accurate this book is and also 'fericious serbian fighters against Hitler' who cooperated with him all the time.

Don't you just love DEMOCRACY, and the freedom of speech and publications??? I LOVE IT SO MUCH, it is the only way people and
writers such as the one of this book reveal their ugly true self, often for the sake of money.

Great book if you are a firm believer in the old saying; "there are two sides to a coin"

This book should be read not just as a memoir, but as a memoir of a man with a guilty conscience. Many people hold Zimmerman responsible for sabotaging the 'Lisbon accord' a peaceful solution to the Bosnian situation brokered by the President of Portugal in March 1992. It was Zimmerman's 'hero,' former Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, who mysteriously broke the accord and forced the Serbs to declare a independent state. Zimmerman spends much of the book trying to justify Izetbegovic's (and his own) actions.

Ivetbegovic it is worth noting was linked to the Bosnian-version of the Hitler youth in the 1940's and in the 1980's published a work, Islamic Declaration, a fundamentalist Islamic tract based largely on the teachings of Ayatollha Khomeni. How he became the darling of the Clinton administration is one of the great mysteries of modern diplomacy. Zimmerman fails to mention these salient facts about Izetbegovic and shows his gross ignorance of history in several other glaring omissions and errors. Most telling, while he admits the role of Croatian and Muslim fascists in the Holocaust in Yugoslavia, he numbers the victims at 'tens of thousands.' Holocaust reference detail between 600,000-1,000,000 Serbs died in the camps (along with the Jewish and Roma victims).

For those who assume I have some innate bias, I am not a Serbian, nor do I have personal connection to the region. I simply shudder, however, at the thought of Zimmerman?s work being taken as *serious* history. It is worth reading but deserves the highest degree of scepticism.

A memoir by the man who was US Ambassador to Yugoslavia during 1989-1992. Zimmerman, declaring that "Yugoslavia was destroyed from the top down," focuses especially upon how the political leaders there tore their country apart. He also blames the Serbian Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church in Croatia for their "disgraceful role by exacerbating racial tensions." Zimmerman criticizes Western Europe (and especially the British and French governments) for their early lack of concern as Yugoslav unity became imperiled.

Despite the obvious biases and shortfalls to be expected in a book written by a former US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, the book is informative and useful in piecing together the complicated chain of events taking place simultaneously in the seperate Republics as the Federation crumbled.
The book does tend to minimize the role of the US and NATO forces and focus more on the domestic events driven by local power figures but all in all I would say that the author does an admirable job of writing a relatively short, concise book about a very complex story without losing too many of the vital facts.
This may not be the "definitive" book on the collapse of Jugoslavija but for the average reader it is certainly a good foundation from which to delve deeper.

The book is one sided and does not describe the situation the way it really was.

An interesting primer that illustrates the military garb of those units which collaborated with the Nazi German, Fascist Italian, Fascist Hungarian, and Royalist Bulgarian occupiers of WW 2 Yugoslavia. There are only a couple of drawbacks to this book. First, maybe because of the Croatian ethnicity of one of the authors and the illustrator, the absolute brutality of the NDH (Independent State of Croatia) is not really made clear to those new to the subject. Also, the portrayal of the Royalist Chetniks (ethnic Serbian and Montenegrin forces) as monolithic, and the instances of their collaboration as other than adhoc and incidental,is not entirley accurate. The biggest evidence against such charges against the Chetniks is the saving of over 400 Allied, mainly American, downed aircrewmen in the summer of 1944. Operation Halyard, as it was called, could not have been if the majority of Chetnik forces had not actively hid the airmen from the Fascist forces. Richard Felman, one of those Americans rescued thanks to the Chetniks, wrote an autobiography on the subject and campaigned for many years to have the complex history of the Chetniks accepted in the History field.

This book is excellant for the study of military history. People seem to be angry that the book does not explain the brutality of the NDH. Well, the book was not written to explain this. There are plenty of books for that subject. To speak of being slanted, those books do not explain the Armies of the Balkans as anything more than "Nazi Drones". To speak from an intellectual standpoint, I wanted to learn about the uniforms, officers, and internal workings of the Axis forces in Yugoslavia. I find this a big coincidence that this is also the title of the book. .... The NDH was a horribile fascist regime. I'm not denying this.But some people joined to make an Independant State of Croatia. Just the same as not all Germans were Nazis. .... This book is about military units, and in that regard, it is superb with excellant drawing, photos, and diagrams. Lets drop the propaganda, and political agendas, and study historical facts.

It was only because of military intervention in Bosnia that the war finally ended. The fact that war ended had nothing to do with the UN's humanitarian mission, from the start a disgrace and a failure. It is amazing how hard it is to find UN personel willing to admit their policy, prior to military intervention, was disastrous. This year finally, the Secretary General, in a report framed by the massacre of Srebrenica, did admit the UN's total failure.

Ever wondered why the UN "failed" in Bosnia, only to be replaced by NATO? Ever thought about what causes UN missions to fail in some situations (as in Bosnia) and succeed in others (as in East Timor)? From historical evidence it appears that there is no inherent institutional flaw in the UN structure but that the Security Council, by assigning different mandates and rules of engagement, determines the likely outcome of various missions. Who interests does this kind of "peacekeeping" serve?

This book adds to our understanding of the critical role of outside factors in the partition of Yugoslavia. It sheds some light on the reasons for (intended? ) failiure of UNPROFOR and the subsequent insertion of NATO. It is required reading for anyone trying to understand the Yugoslav mayhem beyond superficiality of mainstream media coverage.

Philip Corwin's captivating memoir reveals the dark secrets of the UN mission in Bosnia during its last days. By mid-1995, the UN had become resigned to playing mercenaries to the Muslim government in Sarajevo, harassed by the cheerleading international press, pushed around by Washington and held hostage by the local gagster-leaders. Corwin describes how the mission degenerated from a supposedly good-faith, impartial peacekeeping effort into an open war against one belligerent. His notes reveal the crippling internal politics of UNPROFOR and the enormous pressure of NATO to come in, guns blazing. Corwin escapes the temptation to moralize and preach to both the world and the Bosnians. Instead, he exposes the malicious incomprehension of the situation on part of the foreign factors, and blasts the thuggery of Bosnian leaders - Serbs, Muslims and Croats alike. Though he does not absolve the Serbs from a shred of responsibility for the horrors of the Bosnian war, by giving them a voice at all he has probably risked vitriolic condemnation by various "Muslim partisans," among whom you will find some familiar names... Corwin's book is not THE ONE BOOK you need to understand the Bosnian tragedy. But between him and general MacKenzie, the UN side of it is told as it was. If you want to know how today's world of mercenary peacekeeping and random bombing came to be, read this book. It is a must.

This atlas may be useful for highways. Other readily available atlases and maps duplicate the other cartographic information. The text has to be updated, and the maps are useless for changes after the wars started.

The articles are useful for a view of the early part of the Bosnia war, but the maps are simply taken from pre-war highway touring guide maps of Yugoslavia. They are very general and do not offer a very clear view of the actual Bosnian conflict. This volume is hastily constructed and extremely commercial. A truly careful Atlas, using the widely available census date from the former Yugoslavia, showing the population of each town and section by group, and showing the exact position of the moving inter-ethnic boundaries during the conflict would be invaluable and is still desperately needed. Why the editors did not take advantage of thw extraordinary census information on the public record escapes this reviewer, but it is deeply disappointing. Volumes that do present this vital information are available, but not on the standard U.S. markets.

Having been to Bosnia 5 times on humanitarian missions, I found that this book was accurate in explaining the central issues. I have always been interested in the "whys" of genocide, which this article covered in a very mind-provoking way. I am suggesting that all my future trip participants get a copy of this to give them an overview of this extremely complicated part of the world.

Although very dated at this point, with no consideration given to the crucial 1995 military operations in Croatia and then Bosnia and the ensuing Dayton Accords in a revised and updated edition, "Balkan Tragedy" is still a somewhat useful source because it provides considerable in-depth analysis of the underlying economic and structural causes of Yugoslavia's break-up. Woodward also tries to broaden the scope of her analysis to consider the ways in which the wider international context influenced events in the former Yugoslavia and even fomented their intensification. However, while this approach does clarify many events that occurred after the wars in Croatia and Bosnia had already begun, Woodward does not quite succeed in providing completely credible explanations for the actual origins of the Yugoslav crisis. Despite the hefty text, extensive research and copious footnotes, one can't escape the feeling that Woodward's approach is at times piecemeal (to paraphrase her former boss, the tragicomical Yasushi Akashi), primarily when dealing with the international players (from the IMF to the EU and U.S. State Department) who she insists bear a great deal of the responsibility for the Yugoslav tragedy. For while she often provides detailed explanations of the political and economic factors and pressures at play within the former Yugoslavia and their impact on decision-making and political events (which often seems to exonerate the various Yugoslav leaders of their culpability for concrete abuses of power and war crimes), she does not similarly analyze the economic/structural aspects and motivations guiding the foreign policies of the various outside powers which could have and eventually did influence Yugoslav events - even though her approach would seem to demand such consideration. Regardless of the degree of complicity of international players in the Yugoslav tragedy (and it was great), the prime responsibility for the political breakdown and course of Yugoslavia's dissolution lies with the various post-Yugoslav leaders (some more than others). After all, they made the decisions on how to respond to and/or manipulate international (primarily economic) pressures and domestic (often nationalistic) tensions, and this is not made sufficiently clear in Woodward's book.

The book sometimes hides its thesis behind detail, and is not easy to follow. It was finished for the press before the Croat offensive of Spring 1995, and loses some perspective in consequence. Hence only four stars! It is very thoroughly researched (not just full of footnotes), and it is one of the very few books on the Bosnian war which doesn't simply pick heroes and villains - which has, of course, led to it being denounced as pro-Serb. Woodward's main line is that the basis of conflict was 'the economy, stupid'. Successive blunders in the terms of IMF loans, and misjudged changes in the federal constitution, set the constituent republics against each other. Misunderstanding of the issues (and German/Austrian favouritism to Balkan clients) led the European powers into grossly unprincipled and utopian interventions. The federation was levered apart, while preserving intact the constituent republics. This was a 'solution' to the wrong set of problems. The United States, continually encouraging the Bosnian Muslims to wait for the NATO fairy to rescue them (it didn't), completed the sorry work of war-making - though this last element is better documented elsewhere (e.g. in Rose's _Fighting for Peace_). I don't agree with all of the author's opinions. In particular, I think national allegiances run deeper and history is more relevant than she wants to believe. But it is a serious attempt to rescue this piece of contemporary history from self-indulgent moral one-upmanship and propaganda saturation. If only Woodward could write as well as Ivo Banac!

Excellent, balanced, credible and more importantly- SCHOLARLY analysis of the Balkan conflicts. Woodward's in-depth study blows away the simplistic answers other writers have offered to solving the extremely complex problems in the region. A good critique of current US foreign policy in the former Yugoslavia. Can't wait for her next book!

Something more of a diary or a long letter home than I had expected. The author visits people and recounts their conversations, many of which remind us how mis-understood the poor Serbs really are.

I read the book just after it was published and missed an opportunity to speak with the author at an appearance she made in Chicago. My only criticism is that the questions the author poses about the Serbian people and their situation during the war are never answered. I was waiting for some insight about the situation and some perspectives on solutions to the political problems in Belgrade. Nothing was answered or ever raised. We simply get a diary of small vignettes. If she really did meet all those people, I'm surprised that the author didn't have an answer to the question she posed about the Serbian people and their mindset. I sent her a note inviting her to research some of the writings by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich, a Serbian Bishop, and survivor of the Holocaust. His take on the Serbian people, their faith and their tenacity would have explained everything to her. "The Serbs will choose the difficult road because it is the right one, the Christian one."

I would've titled this "A Peek into Serbia" but Levinsohn's description of life in Belgrade v. the rest of more rural Serbia was a surprise to me, as was much of the material in this book. A flowing descripteur, Levinsohn transports us to the dusty but beautiful capital of the former Yugoslavia, and allows tainted Western minds to experience the life of a passionate country and culture, one quite unlike any Americans have ever experienced on paper. The politics of the novel can get complicated, especially since the book is nearing ten years old, and the speculations as to whether or not Milosevic will go to trial in the Hague are tedious to readers, since he has already been there several months. In any case, this book was terrific, and I would recommend it to anyone looking to better understand the mentality of Serbians. Her view of Serbs as "victims with a certain victim mentality" was quite refreshing when splashed against the Western view of Serbs as the guilty party of the war in Yugoslavia and it's casualties. The most appreciated part of this book was Levinsohn's desire to get to the heart of the split of Yugoslavia, and to try to lift some of the intense blame placed on Serbians. In my eyes, she has shed some light onto the matter, more than I can say CNN ever did.

If you know anything about the region and recent events, this book will not enlighten you further. If you don't know anything about what went on in Kosovo, but would like to, "A Village Destroyed," by Fred Abrahms is a much better source. If you want to know what it's like to be a green newspaper reporter covering his first war this might be of some interest.

"Beyond the MOuntains of the Damned" is a journalistic account of the 1999 war in Kosovo told through both the eyes of journalist Matthew McAllester as well as several of the victims. The senseless brutality wrought upon the Muslim majority by the Serbs is well chronicled. The Kosovo "ethnic clensing" effort lacked the systemic nature of the Nazi genocide or even the occasional grand scale of some of the atrocities committed in Bosnia, but it was no less horrific. Albnaians had their homes burned and their villiages destroyed and many were shot as the Serbs attempted to drive them out.

Most of the action in the book takes place in and around the city of Pec, in eastern Kosovo. It was among the hardest hit regions in the territory. McAllester spent the three month war infiltrating Kosovo around in this region, though he never made to Pec until after the war because he would certainly have been killed by the Serbs. Meanwhile in Pec, an ALbanian butcher named Isa Bala and his family tried to stay inconspicuous and wait out the killing. Thier fate ultimately gives this story its gravity.

The only knock against the book is that for the most part it lacks a broader perspective. The political events surrounding the war and the history that led to Kosovo's destruction get some mention, but not enough for the avearge reader. Also, the larger war outside the Pec region gets only superficial coverage. Nevertheless, this is still a disturbing account of modern genocide and of the banality of man's evil.

I followed the war in Kosovo by reading about it in the newspapers. Then, like the bulk of Americans, pretty much forgot about it once it was over. But thanks to McAllester's exquisite, journalistic eye for detail, I feel as if I was actually there, a witness somehow to the atrocities that took place.
I have never had a particular interest in, or understanding of, the Balkans. Now after reading Beyong the Mountains of the Damned I hunger to know as much as possible.
This is no ordinary historical account. It is compelling and it stays with you after you are done. It reads with the breeze of fiction. What is petrifying, however, is that the characters are real and so are their stories. Chapter 12, The Killing, may be the most powerful chapter I've ever read in any book of this kind. While reading alone, I gasped and cried out loud.
I highly recommend this book to anyone with a particular interest in Kosovo and Serbia. But it is not only for those with a specialized interest in the region. It is for anyone who appreciates good writing and courageous reporting.