Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Harcourt, Brace and Company in 1922 in 585 pages; Subjects: History / Europe / Italy; ... Read more

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Publisher: London ConstablePublication date: 1914Subjects: Balkan Peninsula -- History War of 1912-1913Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent history without the influence of recent events
I read this book as after reading "Short History of Byzantium" and "Ottoman Centuries." My biggest concern in choosing from the available material was finding a subjective history that wasn't influenced by the events of the past decade or even, if possible, the cold war. The market has been flooded in recent years with books attempting to "explain" current events in Serbia, et al.

I found what I was looking for in this book. Published ~1920, the author's language can come across archaic at times, but is not difficult to read. He has a dry wit and insight which shines through, making it quite enjoyable.

Although he pays passing tribute to the Greeks, the primary focus on the region's history begins with the Byzantine empire, followed by Ottoman, which was still in the process of finding it's present day role in the world as the Republic of Turkey at the time this book was published.

High marks go to Schevill for his ability to interweave European politics and their impact on the region (Russia's desire for control of the Balkans from the time of Peter the Great forward;Napoleon's brief alliance with Russia for the same purpose; Austria's on-going alliance with Hungary)

This is history at its finest - a must read for anyone with more that a passing interest in the subject.

A course in Balkan History
This is a very informative book on the history of the Balkan countries, including Greece, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Albania.The book reads like a college course in History: I even took notes on it so that I could remain organized.If you arelooking for a book that reads easily, and will be informative as well asfun, this is probably not the book for you.However, if your goal is tolearn about this diverse and troubled region of the world, and you have thepatience and thirst for knowledge of a scholar, this would be right up youralley. ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1914 edition by the Encyclopaedia Britannica Company, Ltd., London. ... Read more

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This book offers rare insights into the cultural traditions that have shaped the Balkan region--from pagan times, through folk culture, the medieval Christian churches, the encounter between Christianity and Islam, up to the religious and national mythologies that have proved so destructive in the present day. With the Balkans a central focus of European concern at the beginning of the 21st Century, this volume is a timely reminder of the complex cultural processes that continue to affect the modern world.
... Read more

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Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Balkan," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Balkan in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Balkan when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Balkan, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This book is part of the Our Name in History series, a collection of fascinating facts and statistics, alongside short historical commentary, created to tell the story of previous generations who have shared this name.The information in this book is a compendium of research and data pulled from census records, military records, ships' logs, immigrant and port records, as well as other reputable sources. Topics include:

• Name Meaning and Origin
• Immigration Patterns and Census Detail
• Family Lifestyles
• Military Service History
• Comprehensive Source Guide, for future research

Customer Reviews (1)

Incomplete, biased, disappointing
Since the author actually studied under one of the twentieth century's great historians, Fernand Braudel, I really had high expectations of this book. Most of them were not met. Stoianovich attempts to present a "total history" of the Balkans, which means it is not restricted to any historical period, nor to any specific field of study, encompassing consideration of the economy, society, geography, biological/environmental factors, etc. for the region as a whole. The author should be commended for such an ambitious undertaking, and his wide knowledge of the relevant primary and secondary sources is quite impressive. However, the book requires quite a bit of prior knowledge on the Balkans, so it cannot be used as an introduction to the region and its history. It seems as though Stoianovich's narrower field of interest is the Balkans under Ottoman rule, as it is those parts of the text which deal with that period that provide the most coherent analysis and receive the most thoughtful consideration. Also, the entire book has a rather disjointed character, as the author often cites dizzying quantities of information on e.g. linguistic morphology or whether patterns from Neolithic times to the present without tying the threads together clearly, thus leaving the reader feeling more confused rather than informed. Nationalism, as an overriding socio-political force in the Balkans for much of the last two centuries, is dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner: Stoianovich never quite explains it in the context of the region's overall, long-term development. Although he indirectly cites Ernest Gellner's theory of nationalism as a by-product of modernization and industrialization, he fails to explain why nationalism emerged among many Balkan peoples in a decidedly pre-industrial stage of their development. Another failing is the author's rather obvious pro-Serb bias: the preponderance of examples he uses involve Serbia or the Serbs, and he tries to give various Serbian politicians, scholars, philosophers, etc. a wider significance than they actually merit. In his discussion of Yugoslavia's collapse and the ensuing wars in the early 1990s, this line of thought leads to a rather sad and misguided exercise in trying to assign a kind of value-based "national character" to the Serbs and Croats (suffice it to say, the Serbs are imbued with positive traits while the Croats come out as rather treacherous). For me this aspect rather sullies the entire book, which is unfortunate, since his concluding chapter contains many valid observations and warnings on the nature of global capitalism and its consequences for the natural environment. While "Balkan Worlds" has many commendable aspects, as a whole the book is disappointing and largely fails as a total history of the Balkans. ... Read more

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Richard Hall examines the origins, the enactment and the resolution of the Balkan Wars, during which the Ottoman Empire fought a Balkan coalition of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia, that collapsed in 1913. Based on archival as well as published diplomatic and military sources, this book provides the first comprehensive perspective on the diplomatic and military aspects of the Balkan Wars. It demonstrates that, because of the diplomatic problems raised and the military strategies and tactics pursued to resolve those problems, the Balkan Wars were the first phase of the greater and wider conflict of the First World War. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Are we going back to the era of the nationalims and the half truths?
I ordered the book some days before and I am really impressed from Amazon's speedy delivery since I live in Europe. I just ended the reading (since has only 142 text pages) and I find the book a strange Bulgarian-apologizing text, full of historical errors and collectively chosen facts. In its way, a narrow and truth-manipulating book almost a nationalist leaflet for a lost war. Having read just before a very detailed, real neutral historical study (Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913 by E.J. Erickson / 400pages) about the Balkan Wars, I was able to see how purposely the author manipulated and twisted both the military and diplomatic facts, to the bulgarian favor. His numbers tend to go up or down depended to the outcome of the battles and wars (600.000 men in the 1st war -the victorious one- 350.000 in 2nd -the lost- just some months later) He is systematically blaming everybody else for the sad end of the Bulgaria's aspirations except the admitted Bulgarian maximalism. He is failing to follow the diplomacy in such an extend that when russian foreign minister (Sazonov) turned his back to the bulgarian prime minister (Danev) in 25 June 1913 every reader became socked for the Russian betrayal since previously the author had said nothing about Bulgaria's attitude against Russia outside Constantinople (when Russia threatened to attack them), its attitude against Romania, its attitude against Serbia and finally against Greece. In Kresna battle he see an imminent annihilation of their opponents unless the bulgarian government had demanded that its army cease activity (just hours before Bulgaria's collapse, something like: if Hitler lived a day more, he would destroyed the russians), which is just totally untrue. To me it is also the first time to see an history author to try to blame the victim for the attack of his aggressor (although they were still allies at the time of the attack). And many many other. Also the map's quality is really a shame, since all of them are hand-written. In sort to say the less the book is more of a lesson to anyone on how not to write an historical book than an objective historical book of what happened a whole century before. Pity

the best book in English on the subject
I've just finished writing a book about the Ottoman Army's participation in the Balkan Wars. Consequently, I've read (or scanned) almost every book ever written in English, German, Turkish, and French about the Balkan Wars.
Dr. Hall's book is the only book written in English which lays out the flow of events in an understandable format that links the various theaters together. Nobody in the past eighty years has ever done a better job in explaining the military side of this war. If you only read a single book on this subject - this is it.
The challenge of writing a balanced book on this subject is extremely difficult due to the problem of access to available sources and the problem of fluency in multiple (and uncommon) languages. Dr. Hall has done a creditable job in crafting a capstone book that captures the overall strategic picture of the Balkans in 1912/1913. While some readers may find criticisms (maps, editing, use of mainly Bulgarian sources, etc.) this should not obscure what the author has achieved.
I enjoyed the book and I refered to it frequently while writing my own book when I neeeded to fall back on a meaningful context and framework of understanding. Finally, "The Balkan Wars 1912-1913" will leave you hungry for more information about this important war. I hope that it will stimulate interest in a long neglected subject. It's worth the money!

Good but flawed synthesis
This is a readable brief account of a series of conflicts about which far too little has been written in English, which should serve non-Balkan specialists well.But it falls considerably short of what one would like, even for a book of 176 pages.There are an embarrassing number of editing lapses (e.g., repetition of the sentence beginning "Negotiations..." on p. 69) and typos, for which the publisher bears some responsibility.Forms of proper names are mostly Bulgarian (with inconsistencies), with no cross-reference to, say, the usual Yugoslav spelling of "Pashich" and rendering of Turkish names, when they are given at all, without dotless i's, etc. Previous reviewers have commented on the grossly inadequate maps; the photo on the cover of the paperback edition whets my appetite for more illustrations, which are completely lacking.Anyone with access to a large public or university library should look for old literature on the war, such as Hermenegild Wagner's _With the Victorious Bulgarians_ (1913), which has very good maps of the Thracian theater.

Hall depends heavily on Slavic sources on the wars, especially Bulgarian ones, which he has thorough control of, but the results are some quite idiosyncratic casualty figures. (The Turkish General Staff's official history of the war, _Balkan harbi_, is cited nowhere, presumably because the author doesn't read Turkish.) The Serbian army's casualties seem far too small, considering that they took every Turkish position by direct assault (e.g., less than 4,000 Serb casualties for the battle of Kumanovo, as opposed to 12,000 Turkish losses).If the Turks had simply retreated instantly, the low casualties would seem understandable, but the Ottoman casualties given for the Macedonian theater are quite high, so one might conclude either that Serbian casualties were greatly underplayed or that the progress of the battle is totally misrepresented.The Turkish casualty figure of 100,000 for both theaters seems incredibly high (though Edward Erickson's _Ordered to Die_ , by an author who knows Turkish sources, gives a far more astounding figure, 250,000.)

Hall is addicted to military and diplomatic second-guessing, which grows tiresome by the end of the book.Though he puts his finger on the more consequential faux pas (the inability of the Russian government to arbitrate Balkan League conflicts, the confusion in Sofia at the opening of the 2nd Balkan War), I would prefer analysis of why errors were made to shoulda-coulda.I would also question Hall's understanding of cholera (which rivaled combat as a source of death); it was most likely not spread by armies, but by soldiers' repeated use of untreated water-hence its reoccurrence in eastern Thrace.

Above all, even for a short book, one would like more on the human rather than strictly political consequences of the war.Virtually nothing is said of the fate of the millions of ethnic Turks and Slavic-speaking Muslims trapped in non-Muslim states as a result of the Balkan Wars.Maybe Hall himself will someday write a more complete book on the wars (and, I hope, get better editorial support).

Fills a gap in 20th Century European History
Most students of modern Europe will have learned something of the Balkan Wars, those two localized conflicts involving Turkey which occurred on the eve of, and were among the causes of, World War I.But few studies of 20th century Europe, or even of the Great War and its causes, provide more than mere mention of these obscure wars.Richard Hall goes far towards remedying the problem in this concise (143 pp., 165 pp. with endnotes and bibliography) study.

Hall covers much of the basic ground:why the wars occurred; who was allied with whom and why; the size, training, armaments and disposition of the competing forces; the strategy and tactics of the campaigns; and, a succinct explanation of the results.Hall also appears well-equipped to analyze these wars.In addition to relying on contemporaneous accounts by French, German, British and American observers, Hall also cites numerous works in Serbo-Croation and Bulgarian. Perhaps one reason why there has never appeared a good summary of the Balkan Wars is that a command of several languages is needed in order to write a reliable one.Except for Greek and Turkish sources, Hall seems to have examined the available primary sources.

Only two criticisms can be fairly lodged against this study.First, while readers will recognize that this work was intended to be rather short ( it forms a part of the Warfare and History series under the general editorship of Jeremy Black), Hall might have spent a little more time integrating the Balkan Wars into the larger picture of instability which characterized early 20th century Europe.How did the Balkan Wars affect the attitudes, if not the alignments, of the Great Powers?Did the Balkan Wars really bring the Great Powers closer to European War?Could a remedy to the competing interests of the countries involved have been fashioned in such a way as to defuse the Balkan powder keg?Hall's study might have dealt with these larger questions more thoroughly.

Of less importance, the text is marred by numerous editing errors and by inadequate maps.I always read history with historical atlases by my side; but none that I own provide good maps of these wars.The publishers missed a real opportunity to remedy this problem with Hall's book; more detailed and well-developed maps would have greatly enhanced the text.

Still, this book goes far towards filling in a significant gap in modern European history and is recommended for students of modern Europe and particularly for those interested in the Balkans or in the origins of the First World War.

"Some damned silly thing in the Balkans"
As Bismarck is attributed as saying in 1898, "If there ever is another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans."

This book is a diplomatic and military history of the First and Second Balkan wars.It's rather amazing that these local conflicts were not the "damn silly thing" and did not erupt into a wider conflict.It would take Princip's shots at Sarajevo to spread the flames of war to the Great Powers.

Much of the belligerent nations' subsequent diplomatic decisions can be attributed to the events and results of the Balkan Wars.Bulgaria's alliances with Germany in the subsequent two world wars are clearly rooted in the Balkan Wars.Serbia's actions and the Austrian reactions to them were first choreographed during the Balkan Wars - with disastrous consequences in July of 1914.

The book provides excellent background on the early 20th century conflicts which incubated today's controversies regarding Macedonia, Kosovo, and other lingering Balkan animosities.

The author makes the point that in the Balkans, there was almost no pause between these wars and thebeginning of the Great War.Many of the belligerents were engaged from 1912 until the Armistice of 1918.

Because of the short time between the end of the Balkan Wars and the beginning of the Great War, the author argues that the military lessons of the Balkan Wars regarding machine guns, quick firing artillery, and aircraft reconnaissance could not be properly absorbed by the military tacticians of the day.

Of particular interest to military historians is the book's description of the Gallipoli campaign during the First Balkan War in which the Turks conducted an amphibious assault against the defending Bulgarians.The Turks were able to make good their lessons learned from their attack when they were in the reverse role of defending against the British and ANZACs in 1915.

The Great Power conferences which finalized the results of the two Balkan wars were like the last symphonies in the Concert of Europe.The Balkan belligerents had to maintain one eye on their patrons among the Great Powers as they pursued their territorial goals.Never again would Great Power diplomatic pressure alone be successful in redrawing the borders of Europe.For example, the birth of the Albanian state as a result of Austrian and Italian interests against those of Serbia and Greece was a major outcome of the First Balkan War.

I could only give this book three stars due to some shortcomings.The maps are simple line drawings and do not provide enough detail to adequately support the text.The author has a habit of "giving away" the results of a battle before his description of the entire event is complete.For example, indicating that control of a road would be critical to an army's eventual retreat before describing the actual battle.Finally, the author has a predilection towards perfect hindsight judgments regarding the belligerents' ways and means.

Overall, a nice and short read on a little documented prelude to the Great War. ... Read more

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The Balkans—the gateway between East and West—are also Europe's soft underbelly, a rough neighborhood where organized crime and terrorism present a constant threat. This eye-opening book details how 15 years of misguided Western interventions, political scheming, and local mafia appeasement, compounded by a massive infusion of Arab cash, fundamentalist Islamic preaching and mosque-building have allowed radical Islamic groups to fill in the cracks between internal ethnic and religious schisms and take root in key areas of the Balkans.

With all eyes currently focused on the widening conflict in the Middle East and the terrorist threat coming from the region, the West is in danger of overlooking a potent new battleground in the greater war on terror—the Balkans. This historically volatile region saw some of the worst violence of the late 20th century in the Yugoslav Wars of Secession. During these conflicts, stunningly shortsighted and politically motivated policies of the United States and its allies directly allowed Islamic mujahedin and terrorist-related entities to establish a foothold in the region—just as with the progenitors of the Taliban a decade earlier in Afghanistan.

Although the 9/11 attacks caused a partial reassessment of Western policy, it may already be too late for a region still largely ignored. The proliferation of foreign fundamentalist groups has had a cancerous effect on traditional Balkan Islamic communities, challenging their legitimacy in unprecedented and often violent ways. Well-funded groups like the Saudi-backed Wahabbis continue to exploit internal schisms within local communities, while the international administrations in Bosnia and Kosovo have actually strengthened the grip of local mafia groups—business partners of terrorists. Worst of all, the Western peacekeepers' chronic don't rock the boat mentality has allowed extremist groups to operate unchallenged. Nevertheless, regional demographic and cultural trends, coinciding with an increasingly hostile attitude in the larger Muslim world over Western military actions and perceived symbolic provocations, indicate that the lawless Balkans will become increasingly valuable as a strategic base for Islamic radicals over the next two decades. Utilizing the post-al-Qaeda tactics of a decentralized jihad carried out through small, independent cells (leaderless resistance) while seeking to fundamentally and violently remold Muslim societies, such Balkan-based extremists pose a unique and tangible threat to Western security.

Customer Reviews (12)

Nailed it!
I don't know much about the Balkans, but I can vouch for the chapter on Turkey. That's saying something given the complexity of the country. Deliso adeptly summarizes the key political events of the last twenty years.

A brilliant analysis of the hidden politics - on the Balkans, USA and EU
The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West is one of these books that every human being should read before she or he votes or before she of he enlists to fight in a foreign country. For certain, it should be taught in all US Universities in the class "How to create flexible, well organized and well financed terrorism cells worldwide and pay for the pleasure with US taxpayers' money".

"The Coming Balkan Caliphate" is the most comprehensive book for people to understand not only the recent past of the Balkans, but also to try to avoid future mistakes, which can tragically affect the future of all nations. Unfortunately, as always, the information about the mistakes made by Western politicians and political groups comes too late to be rectified.

Chris Deliso made a very detail research and miraculously accessed classified files from several 3-letters agencies. The result: astonishing truths not only about the Bosnian, Kosovo, and Albanian politicians and terrorists, but also about the hidden (from the American and Western taxpayer) political games of the USA and EU, which resulted in several catastrophic events for entire nations.

Smoothly narrated, lavishly illustrated with facts and figures, the book is real pleasure to read and to keep for reference.

THE PROSECUTION RESTS ITS CASE YOUR HONOR
I have read Chris' book from a cop's eye view and in so doing examined it searching for inconsistent "testimony" as is evident in the usual contemporary journalistic rubbish. There is none. I spentseveralyearsin Bosnia and Croatia as a police observer. I also have spent timein Serbia including Kosovo and Montenegro as a tourist so I have the advantage of being able to compare on the ground gained experience with Chris' written factswho by the way has chronicled his by the same method of up close and personal interaction.

THE COMING BALKAN CALIPHATE is a professional investigator's prime reference toolfor getting up to speed on what's happening in the Balkans in regard to the scams being runthere and is the Who's Who for who is operating them.On my return to my home city, New York, I felt relieved to be safe in the good old U.S.A. That is until I was driving to work on September 11, 2001 in Manhattan. Chris will tell you in detail just who was responsible for that atrocity. I am tired of 9/11 being referred to as a tragedy. It was an atrocity and a war crime. For those of you who are politically correct neurotics-take a hike.

After you read Chris' book you will see that "it" is not the oil as is the usual war protestor's cry but the junk, skag, white powder or what ever you want to call it. The politicians are making deals with whomever will accommodate their mad dash for wealth and more and more power. The oil piplines and military bases are going up while the pushers are being given a pass to move their white death through Europe and into the veins of our American youth. So while many of ouryouth are fighting for their lives in the Middle East the rest of them are dying on our streets.

If you want to really know what's going on behind the scenes read this book. Then put in on your shelf and see what happens next.

Islam - the all-pervasive religion
This is the best, concise yet thorough primer on the topic of militant Islam in the Balkans by a leading analyst who has been living in the region and analysing it for the last decade or so.

Islam is not merely a religion. It is also - and perhaps, foremost - a state ideology. It is all-pervasive and missionary. It permeates every aspect of social cooperation and culture. It is an organizing principle, a narrative, a philosophy, a value system, and a vade mecum. In this it resembles Confucianism and, to some extent, Hinduism.

Judaism and its offspring, Christianity - though heavily involved in political affairs throughout the ages - have kept their dignified distance from such carnal matters. These are religions of "heaven" as opposed to Islam, a practical, pragmatic, hands-on, ubiquitous, "earthly" creed.

Secular religions - Democratic Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Nazism, Socialism and other isms - are more akin to Islam than to, let's say, Buddhism. They are universal, prescriptive, and total. They provide recipes, rules, and norms regarding every aspect of existence - individual, social, cultural, moral, economic, political, military, and philosophical.

At the end of the Cold War, Democratic Liberalism stood triumphant over the fresh graves of its ideological opponents. They have all been eradicated. This precipitated Fukuyama's premature diagnosis (the End of History). But one state ideology, one bitter rival, one implacable opponent, one contestant for world domination, one antithesis remained - Islam.

Militant Islam is, therefore, not a cancerous mutation of "true" Islam. On the contrary, it is the purest expression of its nature as an imperialistic religion which demands unmitigated obedience from its followers and regards all infidels as both inferior and avowed enemies.

The same can be said about Democratic Liberalism. Like Islam, it does not hesitate to exercise force, is missionary, colonizing, and regards itself as a monopolist of the "truth" and of "universal values". Its antagonists are invariably portrayed as depraved, primitive, and below par.

Such mutually exclusive claims were bound to lead to an all-out conflict sooner or later. The "War on Terrorism" is only the latest round in a millennium-old war between Islam and other "world systems". Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited".

Dangerous ground the Balkans
The Balkans is one of the most very important places today in the world and yet is completely over-looked.Like Afghanistan in the 1990s the world is sitting on a volcano as Islamism grows and spreads in Bosnia and Albania and elsewhere such as in Sanjack in Serbia.A fascinating study is examines the way in which the Balkan terrorist groups may spread out and pose a new threat to world civilization.

Seth J. Frantzman ... Read more

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This book was written in 1915.This was a time that saw many significant events that affected the Balkans.Written by four different authors from different locations, here is their preface to “The Balkans”.

PREFACE

The authors of this volume have not worked in conjunction. Widely separated, engaged on other duties, and pressed for time, we have had no opportunity for interchange of views. Each must be held responsible, therefore, for his own section alone. If there be any discrepancies in our writings (it is not unlikely in so disputed a field of history) we can only regret an unfortunate result of the circumstances. Owing to rapid change in the relations of our country to the several Balkan peoples, the tone of a section written earlier may differ from that of another written later. It may be well to state that the sections on Serbia and Bulgaria were finished before the decisive Balkan developments of the past two months. Those on Greece and Rumania represent only a little later stage of the evolution. That on Turkey, compiled between one mission abroad and another, was the latest to be finished.

If our sympathies are not all the same, or given equally to friends and foes, none of us would find it possible to indite a Hymn of Hate about any Balkan people. Every one of these peoples, on whatever side he be fighting to-day, has a past worthy of more than our respect and interwoven in some intimate way with our history. That any one of them is arrayed against us to-day is not to be laid entirely or chiefly at its own door. They are all fine peoples who have not obtained their proper places in the sun. ... Read more

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The volume addresses the principal question why, given their common past under communist Soviet-type rule, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria accomplished EU membership, while Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia have not.What is political culture? Does political culture affect democratization, and if so, what method could make such analysis feasible? Research on cultural aspects of the various exit strategies of recent and prospective EU members has focused on the cultural thesis that views religion as principal factor for a successful democratization. Baer's comparative and interdisciplinary study addresses the hitherto sparsely researched aspect of political culture with a detailed analysis of the political thought of six Slavic intellectuals, who were crucially involved in nation- and state-building.The analytical portrait of the region's intellectual history, as a subfield of Eastern European history, allows drawing new conclusions about democratization that can help to explain the different paths the states chose after 1989. Baer's study provides a political culture hypothesis and a method tailored to post-communist transition and offers a new theoretical contribution to democratization studies. "The theme and especially the comparative approach are gripping." - Ivanka N. Atanasova, George Mason University."This work is solid intellectual history and has the merit of taking on Samuel Huntington's contention that religion is the key determinant in the development (or lack thereof) of democratic political cultures in East Central Europe."-T. Mills Kelly, George Mason University. ... Read more

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Using his thirty years' experience in regional and city planning and cultural heritage within the territories of the former Yugoslavia, Prof. Branislav Krstic-Brano clearly explains the history and the complex causes and consequences of the ethnic and territorial conflict that erupted in bloody confrontation throughout Kosovo in the late nineties. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the author examines demographic changes; ethnic development of settlements; land ownership; Serbian and Albanian historical monuments, whose listing and preservation are regulated by international conventions; changes in state constitutions; the role of international law in resolving national disputes; and the great powers' strategy for dealing with the Kosovo crisis.

The crux of the problem, as Krstic-Brano shows, is that two peoples claim legitimate rights to the same territory: the Serbs claim a historical right and the Albanians counter that they have an ethnic one. Without favoring either side, the author presents the facts regarding the unique Serbian cultural heritage in the province and the rapid growth of the local Albanian population in the last four decades. Krstic-Brano illustrates how the great powers waged war but failed to ensure peace. He constructs a viable solution to the cultural, ethnic, and political strife - one that he hopes will satisfy both sides of the conflict. The author concludes on a cautiously optimistic note, arguing that the international community has a new opportunity to reconcile the Serbs and Albanians on the basis of population size, land ownership, and origin of cultural monuments.

This important work by a recognized expert in regional culture, urban planning, and politics should be read by everyone interested in a peaceful future for this long-troubled region. ... Read more