Laura Silber

This history by two BBC correspondents does a very good job of presenting the chronology and events of this massive deadly tragedy. The book deftly separates the many different threads of nationalism and nation building that led to the multi-faceted years-long conflict with horrifying atrocities that gave the world the term "ethnic cleansing." The authors are specific and emphatic about the fact that the conflicts were not the inevitable result of ancient ethnic hatreds that were bound to boil over after the death of Tito, who had suppressed all forms of nationalism and ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia during his decades-long rule. Those hatreds certainly existed, but Croats, Serbs and Muslims had for the most part lived alongside each other for a long time and might have continued to do so. Silber and Allan lay the blame primarily on two men: Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, eventually tried for war crimes, and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Croatian leader Franjo Tuđman. Both, say the authors, pushed their own agendas of nation building, paranoia and desire for power over all other concerns, including the lives of their countrymen. The authors also stress the naivety and lack of resolve of NATO and UN would-be mediators that overall was worse than useless until airstrikes were finally called in in defense of the beleaguered Bosnian Muslims in 1994. The book was published in 1995, with events still very much in flux in Bosnia and in Kosovo. I'll need to do some more reading to figure out how things reached their current state.

My interest in the subject was rekindled a couple of years ago when my wife and I visited Croatia on vacation. This book was recommended to us by a bookseller in Dubrovnik.… (more)