Bosnia: A Short History
by Noel Malcolm
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The years 1992 and 1993 will be remembered as the time in which a unique country was destroyed. It was a land with a political and cultural history unlike any other in Europe, a land where great powers and religions converged, overlapped, and combined: the empires of Rome, Charlemagne, the Ottomans, and the Austro-Hungarians; the faiths of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam. Today, this rich past has become obscured by violence and war, shrouded in a bloody fog of show more ignorance and misinformation. In this first-ever full history of Bosnia, Balkan specialist Noel Malcolm provides an account of the country from its beginnings to its tragic end. A triumph of narrative clarity, Bosnia: A Short History outlines and dispels the various myths of racial, religious, and political history which have so clouded the modern understanding of Bosnia's past. In particular, the book explodes the claim that the war in Bosnia was the inevitable consequence of "ancient ethnic hatreds." It illustrates that the cause of Bosnia's destruction came from outside Bosnia itself: first through the political strategy of the Serbian leadership, and then from the fatal miscomprehension and interference of Western politicians. Malcolm lays to rest once and for all the historical fallacies that have dominated not only the media coverage of the war but, more shockingly, the words and actions of Western diplomats and nations. The lasting importance of this book is not only that it puts the Bosnian war into its true perspective, but that it celebrates the complex history of a country whose past - and future - has been all but erased. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
In this post-Yugoslavia world, I'm finding it difficult to tell what those former constituent parts of Yugoslavia, sporting strange names like “Kosovo”, “Montenegro” and “Herzegovina” all fit within Europe, and how (by Australian standards) such small areas got to have such varied histories and traditions.
So, Noel Malcolm’s “Bosnia” is a good introduction for chumps like me; scholarly but readable and my atlas was almost in constant use as I tried to understand where everything was and wasn’t. “Bosnia” also shines some light on a hitherto shady part of history; the role of Bosnian Muslims within the Nazi war machine. Some credit goes to the group of Bosnian Muslims who clashed with their German supervisors but show more prior to them we witnessed several years worth of Bosnian Muslims happily heading off to kill Jews. show less
So, Noel Malcolm’s “Bosnia” is a good introduction for chumps like me; scholarly but readable and my atlas was almost in constant use as I tried to understand where everything was and wasn’t. “Bosnia” also shines some light on a hitherto shady part of history; the role of Bosnian Muslims within the Nazi war machine. Some credit goes to the group of Bosnian Muslims who clashed with their German supervisors but show more prior to them we witnessed several years worth of Bosnian Muslims happily heading off to kill Jews. show less
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Author Information
21+ Works 1,380 Members
Noel Malcolm is a British columnist, writer and editor who was born in 1956. He was educated at Cambridge University and was a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge from 1981 to 1988. Malcolm left teaching to become the Foreign Editor of the Spectator and a political columnist for London's Daily Telegraph. Malcolm has written Bosnia: A show more Short Story, which puts the Bosnia-Hercegovina conflict into historical context and Kosovo: A Short Story, which outlines its history from medieval Serb state into modern times. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Important places
- Bosnia and Herzegovina; Balkans; Yugoslavia
- Dedication
- FOR AHMED AND ZDRAVKO
- Blurbers
- Ferguson, Niall; Obolensky, Dimitry; Hastings, Adrian; Ashdown, Paddy; Trevor-Roper, Hugh; Thatcher, Margaret (show all 7); Stone, Norman
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality
- DDC/MDS
- 949.742 — History & geography History of Europe Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria Former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina ∙ Croatia ∙ Kosovo ∙ Montenegro ∙ Macedonia ∙ Serbia ∙ Slovenia) [formerly also Bulgaria] Bosnia and Herzegovina; Montenegro Bosnia and Herzegovina
- LCC
- DR1685 .M35 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Balkan Peninsula History of Balkan Peninsula Yugoslavia Local history and description Bosnia and Hercegovina
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 382
- Popularity
- 81,897
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.19)
- Languages
- Bosnian, English, German, Italian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 12
- ASINs
- 1
