The author, a professor from Serbia, analyzes his experiences as a dissident against the former Communist government of Yugoslavia, and the government of Slobodan Milosevic, emphasizing the required nationalism of any viable opposition, and attempting to rehabilitate his academic colleague Dobrica Cosic as well as other associates. At the same time, the author thoroughly and convincingly condemns exclusionary and militaristic nationalism, as obsolete and mortally dangerous to mankind. Not a narrative of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, this book instead illustrates dilemmas facing Western-democratically inclined intellectuals in Serbia.

This book is another one of those lit crit essays. It's better than average, if you're into that sort of stuff. But if you're looking for solid information (not based on interpretation from literature) about the Balkans, there's not very much in this book. The author chooses mainly Serbian authors, or authors writing from Belgrade and he seems well aware that this is the politically un-correct side to be describing at this point in time. Perhaps for this reason, he tries to stay clear of politics, aside from a few mentions of atrocities against the Serbs during World War II. If you like reading other people's interpretations of novels you've never heard of, then you might enjoy this book.

Since there are so few books in the English language that deal with Slovenia at all, "Independent Slovenia" is a relatively solid introduction to the country and its more recent history, politics and economics. Most of the book's contributions are written by Slovene scholars (historians, sociologists, economists, etc.), so readers are given an insight into contemporary Slovenian perspectives. Even though a book of this type compels the authors to brevity, the first three chapters dealing with Slovenia's more recent as well as earlier history were still a little too brief for my tastes; much is left unsaid. Another problem is that several of the contributions are written in an extremely academic and dry style, making them a chore to read - this is particularly true of the chapter on trade unions (by Tonci Kuzmanic) and, surprisingly, the punk scene during the 1980s (by Gregor Tomc). These pieces, as well as chapters on women's issues and the economy, also deal too much with more theoretical aspects, with only scant attention given to how these movements and problems were reflected on Slovenian society in general. For example, the chapter on punk would have been much more interesting if the author included more extensive descriptions and analyses of the more popular bands - as it is, he mentions the names of one or two bands and leaves it at that. This indicates another major problem with many of the book's contributions: they tend to assume some prior knowledge of Slovenia. The editors should have also insisted on chapters that dealt specifically with the magazine Mladina, which was the sounding board for political change in Slovenia in the late 1980s (during the so-called 'Slovenian Spring'), and with President Milan Kucan, who very ably presided over Slovenia's transition from Yugoslav federal republic to independent statehood. Mladina's role is only touched upon in a few articles, while Kucan is only mentioned twice - both times in an otherwise very interesting chapter by former (and now once more current) Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel on the political events surrounding Slovenia's push for independence. In hindsight, the chapters dealing with various aspects of Slovenia's economy in the post-independence period seem overly pessimistic, although they provide a strong analysis of the complex structural problems faced by all the post-socialist countries of Europe.

This is a typical "All you want to know" audiobook. It's content is informative, but lacks the depth and specifics that might intrigue the more serious listeners. In the parts throughout the entire tape where actors come in and speak with specific foreign accents that fit the particular scenarios, it becomes very irritating, since these accents substantially undermines my understanding of the content, and some of them make the actors sound extremely unintelligent. No one will believe the Austrian king would speak in the way that an uneducated hobo would, but that's exactly how he sounded like.

A detailed analysis of the decay of the Titoist political system in the 1980s, focusing on the increasing concentration of legitimacy at republican level, and on the counter-productive attempts of the Yugoslav Army to restore the legitimacy of the federal regime. Central to the book is a valuable study of the shift in public opinion and politics in Slovenia in the late 1980s.

This book was clear about the history of what has happened in Bosnia throughout the years of its rises and falls. This book has alot of historical facts and may not be the book you would want to read for a novel. I recomend this book for the students who are trying to study about Bosnia and need alot of information to get a good idea about what happend. With my personal opion I found the book boring to a sort of extent, yet it gave me the information I needed for my project.

Wachtel's book represents an attempt to seek the causes for Yugoslavia's collapse over a decade ago in cultural factors. More specifically, he looks at the role literature and the fine arts (although the latter aspect receives much less attention; other forms of cultural creativity are basically ignored) played in both fomenting a common Yugoslav culture and undermining and eventually initiating the destruction of that very same culture. Along the way, Wachtel makes some valid observations and conclusions: early on, he takes issue with the 'historical inevitability' argument of Yugoslavia's break-up, pointing out that a study of the culture of any nation can produce arguments for 'inevitable' collapse. He cites the example of Germany, although the same applies to France, Italy, England, Spain and so on. Yet even in this initial section of the book, Wachtel's analysis is often marred by broad statements that are not sufficiently argued or backed by strong evidence. But the key flaw in this book is that it is yet another analysis based on a 'master variable' theory of Yugoslavia's collapse, i.e. culture, says Wachtel, is the key determinant. (Ironically, in the introduction he criticizes other scholars for making the same mistake, lambasting those who see the country's destruction as the result of exclusively political or economic factors.) Even if this thesis has merit, Wachtel's study is certainly insufficient to prove it one way or another. First, the focus on literature is too narrow, and second, even within this literary focus, the scope of research is again too narrow - he only covers a small handful of authors, and one can also question his reasons for choosing some and ignoring others. Sorely lacking is any consideration of popular/rock music, which during at least the last two decades of Yugoslavia's existence was a crucial cultural arena with both unifying and, to a lesser extent, disintegrative features. The same can also be said about Yugoslavia's motion picture industry. Wachtel's book is therefore only interesting and useful as a rather good but limited analysis of some aspects of mainly 20th century Yugoslav literary culture.

This book was fun to read, but went into a few too many details. I relly enjoyed reading about such a wonderful tennis player as Monica Seles. I recommend this book to quick readers, or anyone who wants to learn more aobut Monica.

This is a collection of articles that cover the entire span of the history of the Bosnian Muslims, although the quality of the individual contributions varies greatly. The first three articles, which go from the Middle Ages to 1878, are unfortunately uninformative and even tedious for anyone who has already done some reading on general Balkan history, and probably confusing and perhaps overwhelming for those who have no previous knowledge in this field. By far the best piece is the article by this volume's editor, Mark Pinson, which covers the period of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1878-1918) and its effects on the Muslim community. This was in fact a very crucial period for the Bosnian Muslims, because as Pinson points out, it was when they first became a politically aware as a community, and began to seek new ways to articulate their needs. The final article by Ivo Banac, which covers the twentieth century, is a good survey of Bosnian Muslim political history, but it lacks depth, which is disappointing given the importance of this period for understanding events in Bosnia today. There is also a useful, if somewhat dated, appendix for finding further resources on Bosnia, both in print and on the Web. This book is, thus, a generally useful reference source, but it could and should have been something much more.