From beloved international reporter Ã...ne Seierstad comes a remarkable exploration of the lives of ordinary Serbs under the regime of Slobodan Milosevic-during the dramatic events leading up to his fall, and finally in the troubled years that have followed. Seierstad traveled extensively through Serbia between 1999 and 2004, following the lives of people from across the political spectrum. Her moving and perceptive account follows nationalists, Titoists, Yugonostalgics, rock stars, fugitives, and poets. Seierstad brings her acclaimed attention to detail to bear on the lives of those whom she encounters in "With Their Backs to the World", as she creates a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation made up of so many different-and often conflicting-hopes, dreams, and points of view.

With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia

This history of the Serbs opens with the medieval kings of Serbia and a battle lost six centuries ago that still profoundly influences the Serbs. It then describes the idea of Serbdom and examines the tenuous ethnic balance fashioned by Tito and its drastic unravelling after his death.

The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Yale Nota Bene)

The Cyclist Conspiracy tells the tale of a secret Brotherhood who meet in dreams, gain esoteric knowledge from contemplation of the bicycle, and seek to move in and out of history, manipulating events; the Brothers are part of a conspiracy so vast and so secret that, in many cases, the conspirators themselves are unaware of their participation in it. Told through a series of “historical documents”—memoirs, illustrations, letters, philosophical treatises, blue prints, and maps—the novel details the story of these interventions and the historical moments where the Brotherhood has made their influence felt, from the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to a lost story of Sherlock Holmes.

Masterfully intertwining the threads of waking and dreams into the fabric of the present, the past, and the future, Svetislav Basara’s Pynchon-esque The Cyclist Conspiracy is a bold, funny, and imaginative romp.

The Cyclist Conspiracy

Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material and observations gathered from his visit to Yugoslavia in 1999, Michael Parenti challenges mainstream media coverage of the war and uncovers hidden agendas behind the Western talk of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and democracy.

To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia

From the assassination that triggered WW I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia &amp; Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the 20th century, the place where terrorism &amp; genocide 1st became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by "The NY Times", &amp; greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful &amp; timely work on the Balkans to date" by "The Boston Globe", Kaplan's prescient, enthralling &amp; often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.

Fantasmas balcánicos

This unique and lively history of Balkan geopolitics since the early nineteenth century gives readers the essential historical background to recent events in this war-torn area. No other book covers the entire region, or offers such profound insights into the roots of Balkan violence, or explains so vividly the origins of modern Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. Misha Glenny presents a lucid and fair-minded account of each national group in the Balkans and its struggle for statehood. The narrative is studded with sharply observed portraits of kings, guerrillas, bandits, generals, and politicians. Glenny also explores the often-catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the Great Powers, raising some disturbing questions about Western intervention.

The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers 1804 - 1999

A profound collection of Aleksandar Zograf's comics and correspondences during the war in Serbia. This book captures the essence of life during wartime, seen from the apartment window of one who was there at ground zero. The moral ambiguities of war, the horrific reality, the humanity. This volume includes Zograf's entire e-mail correspondence to his friends throughout the world during the bombing of his hometown of Pancevo, as well as all of his comic strips produced over the decade Bosnian/Serbian war. For those who appreciated Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde and Palestine, you will not want to miss this very important book.

Regards from Serbia: A Cartoonist's Diary of a Crisis in Serbia

"A tragic portrait . . . presented with sympathy and frequently with humor . . . [of] a disparate people who were never united except by their resentment of a foreign conqueror." -" Atlantic Monthly"

In "The Impossible Country", Brian Hall relates his encounters with Serbs, Croats, and Muslims-- "real people, likeable people" who are now overcome with suspicion and anxiety about one another. Hall takes the standard explanations, the pundits' predictions, and the evening news footage and inverts our perceptions of the country, its politics, its history, and its seemingly insoluble animosities.

The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia

The 1st authoritative biography of Slobodan Milosevic, the only head of state to be tried for genocide. Milosevic, a man the world hoped it would never see again, is currently on trial at the Internat'l Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for crimes against humanity. This engrossing biography documents the life of the former Serbian leader, whose policies instigated wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia &amp; Kosovo as well as the bloody campaigns of ethnic cleansing that destroyed a once sophisticated multinational country. Drawing on his unrivalled access to many of those closest to Milosevic, author-journalist Adam LeBor describes his subject's unhappy childhood, his marriage &amp; his important friendships. He offers details about the ascendancy of crime over politics in the new republic &amp; the secret channels used by Milosevic &amp; Croatian President Franjo Tudjman as they conspired to carve up Bosnia. LeBor recounts the history of the negotiations between Milosevic &amp; the Western diplomats, politicians &amp; businessmen with whom he dealt, &amp; tells the tragic story of the wars. Finally he portrays the unprecedented internat'l operation that brought down the Milosevic regime in 2001 &amp; led to his trial at the Internat'l Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. A gripping account of Europe's 1st rogue leader in the post-cold war period, this book is also a revelatory look at the tragic story of the collapse of a country &amp; the role played by the West.

Milosevic: A Biography

"The wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in neighboring Croatia and Kosovo grabbed the attention of the western world not only because of their ferocity and their geographic location, but also because of their timing. This violence erupted at the exact moment when the cold war confrontation was drawing to a close, when westerners were claiming their liberal values as triumphant, in a country that had only a few years earlier been seen as very well placed to join the west. In trying to account for this outburst, most western journalists, academics, and policymakers have resorted to the language of the premodern: tribalism, ethnic hatreds, cultural inadequacy, irrationality; in short, the Balkans as the antithesis of the modern west. Yet one of the most striking aspects of the wars in Yugoslavia is the extent to which the images purveyed in the western press and in much of the academic literature are so at odds with evidence from on the ground."—from "The Myth of Ethnic War"V. P. Gagnon Jr. believes that the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s were reactionary moves designed to thwart populations that were threatening the existing structures of political and economic power. He begins with facts at odds with the essentialist view of ethnic identity, such as high intermarriage rates and the very high percentage of draft-resisters. These statistics do not comport comfortably with the notion that these wars were the result of ancient blood hatreds or of nationalist leaders using ethnicity to mobilize people into conflict.Yugoslavia in the late 1980s was, in Gagnon's view, on the verge of large-scale sociopolitical and economic change. He shows that political and economic elites in Belgrade and Zagreb first created and then manipulated violent conflict along ethnic lines as a way to short-circuit the dynamics of political change. This strategy of violence was thus a means for these threatened elites to demobilize the population. Gagnon's noteworthy and rather controversial argument provides us with a substantially new way of understanding the politics of ethnicity.

The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s

During the twentieth century, the Balkan Peninsula was affected by three major waves of genocides and ethnic cleansings, some of which are still being denied today. In Balkan Genocides Paul Mojzes provides a balanced and detailed account of these events, placing them in their proper historical context and debunking the common misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the genocides themselves. A native of Yugoslavia, Mojzes offers new insights into the Balkan genocides, including a look at the unique role of ethnoreligiosity in these horrific events and a characterization of the first and second Balkan wars as mutual genocides. Mojzes also looks to the region's future, discussing the ongoing trials at the International Criminal Tribunal in Yugoslavia and the prospects for dealing with the lingering issues between Balkan nations and different religions. Balkan Genocides attempts to end the vicious cycle of revenge which has fueled such horrors in the past century by analyzing the terrible events and how they came to pass.

Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century

In the 1990s Serbs brought death and destruction to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, and international condemnation and economic ruin on themselves. Heavenly Serbia searches for the causes behind the brutal and futile drive for a Greater Serbia. How did the Serbs rationalize, and rally support for, their genocidal activity? Heavenly Serbia traces Serbia's expansionist impulses to Serbian national mythology. The dominant myth - that of "Heavenly Serbia" - appeared soon after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. It attributed the Serb's defeat by the Turks and the loss of the medieval Serbian state to the Serb's preference for moral salvation over military victory. By emphasizing their commitment to the heavenly kingdom and promising an eventual restoration of the Serbian empire, this myth helped the Serbs to bear their centuries-long domination by a foreign power. Though they ultimately shed the Turkish yoke and regained statehood in the nineteenth century, the Serbs, according to Anzulovic, retained this central myth in the form of feelings of superiority to their neighbors, and a sense of destiny ordaining them to become the dominant power in the Balkans. The myth has been perpetuated by political and religious leaders, historians, novelists, and artists, and has found acceptance abroad as well.

Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide

The Kosovo war in the spring of 1999 introduced many to the man newspapers have called "the butcher of the Balkans," but few understand the crucial role he has played &amp; continues to play in the most troubled part of Europe. Directly or indirectly, he's waged war &amp; instigated brutal ethnic cleansing in Croatia, Bosnia &amp; Kosovo, &amp; he was indicted for war crimes in 5/99. His rise to power, from lowly Serbian apparatchik to president of Yugoslavia, is a tale of intrigue, cynical manipulation &amp; deceit whose full dimensions have never been presented to the public.
 In this 1st full-length biography of the Yugoslav leader, veteran foreign correspondents Doder &amp; Branson paint a disturbing portrait of a cunning politician who hasn't shied from fomenting wars &amp; double-crossing enemies &amp; allies alike in his ruthless pursuit of power. Whereas most dictators encourage a cult of personality around themselves, Milosevic has been content to operate in the shadows, shunning publicity &amp; allowing others to grab the limelight--&amp; then to take the heat when things go badly. His secretive style emerged in response to a family history of depression (his parents were suicides) &amp; has served him well as he begins his 2nd decade in power.
 Doder &amp; Branson introduce us to key figures behind Milosevic's rise: his wife, Mirjana Markovic, often justifiably described as a Serbian Lady Macbeth, &amp; the Balkan &amp; US politicians who learned, too late, about the costs of underestimating him. They also reveal how the USA refused to take the necessary action in 1992 to remove him from power without bloodshed--not realizing that he uses such moments of weakness as opportunities to lull his opponents into traps, thereby paving the way for a new consolidation of power. Now, in the wake of the victory in Kosovo, it remains to be seen whether America will learn this lesson or whether we will allow this deeply troubled man to continue to pose a threat to European peace &amp; security.

Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant

Kosovo, a 55-mile-long plateau south of Serbia bordering Albania &amp; Macedonia, should by all rights be a historical &amp; political backwater. A Bulgarian geographer who visited Kosovo during WWI remarked it was "almost as unknown &amp; inaccessible as a stretch of land in Central Africa." The observation would prove ironically fitting by the '90s, as Central Africa &amp; Kosovo both became sites of widespread genocide, fueled by ethnic hatreds, of the deepest international significance. Noel Malcolm, British historian &amp; journalist who's written extensively about the Balkans (including a companion volume of sorts on Bosnia), provides an overview of Kosovo's long-standing cultural divisions in his "short history" (altho, at more than 500 pages, a not so short book). Readers following the unfolding war in Kosovo thru newspaper &amp; tv coverage may well ask why ethnic Albanians &amp; Serbs are struggling so violently to command the small region. Kosovo, he explains, is the birthplace of Serbian nationalism; the defeat of Serbian forces there in 1389 by Turkish troops became emblematic of the fall of the Serbian empire, as it led to Turkish domination of the Balkans. Contemporary warriors of Serbia are evidently attempting to reverse the course of history by reclaiming the land from its Turkish conquerors--but in the absence of the Turks, they'll take it from the Albanians (the largest ethnic group among Kosovo's inhabitants) whose ancestors converted to Islam when Turks ruled the region. His lucid text shows again &amp; again that the ethnic conflict in Kosovo is less a battle over bloodlines &amp; religion than it's one over differing conceptions of national origins &amp; history. "When ordinary Serbs learn to think more rationally &amp; humanely about Kosovo, &amp; more critically about some of their national myths," he concludes, "all the people of Kosovo &amp; Serbia will benefit--not least the Serbs themselves."--Gregory McNamee (edited)

Kosovo: A Short History

When the regime led by Slobodan Milosevic came to an end in October 2000, expectations for social transformation in Serbia and the rest of the Balkans were high. The international community declared that an era of human rights had begun, while domestic actors hoped that the conditions that had made a violent dictatorship possible could be eliminated. More than a decade after the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia initiated the process of bringing violators of international humanitarian law to justice, significant legal precedents and facts have been established, yet considerable gaps in the historical record, along with denial and disagreements, continue to exist in the public memory of the Yugoslav wars.

"Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial" sets out to trace the political, social, and moral challenges that Serbia faced from 2000 onward, offering an empirically rich and theoretically broad account of what was demanded of the country's citizens as well its political leadership--and how these challenges were alternately confronted and ignored. Eric Gordy makes extensive use of Serbian media to capture the internal debate surrounding the legacy of the country's war crimes, providing one of the first studies to examine international institutional efforts to build a set of public memories alongside domestic Serbian political reaction. By combining news accounts, courtroom transcripts, online discussions, and his own field research, Gordy explores how the conflicts and crimes that were committed under Milosevic came to be understood by the people of Serbia and, more broadly, how projects of transitional justice affect the ways society faces issues of guilt and responsibility. In charting the legal, political, and cultural forces that shape public memory, "Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial" promises to become a standard resource for studies of Serbia as well as the workings of international and domestic justice in dealing with the aftermath of war crimes.

Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial: The Past at Stake in Post-Milošević Serbia

Recent history should remind us that it was events in the Balkans which sparked off World War I (1914-1918), with the assassination of the Austrian heir Prince Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and the consequent invasion of Serbia by Austro-Hungarian armies on 2 August 1914. Nevertheless, the subsequent four-year war in that theatre is always overshadowed by the simultaneous campaigns on the Western Front. For the first time this book offers a concise account of these complex campaigns, the organisation, orders of battle, and the uniforms and insignia of the armies involved: Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, Serbian, Montenegrin, Albanian, British, French, Italian, Russian, Bulgarian, Greek and Rumanian.

Serbia

With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia

Åsne Seierstad

The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Yale Nota Bene)

Tim Judah

The Cyclist Conspiracy

Svetislav Basara

To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia

Michael Parenti

Fantasmas balcánicos

Robert D. Kaplan

The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers 1804 - 1999

Misha Glenny

Regards from Serbia: A Cartoonist's Diary of a Crisis in Serbia

Aleksandar Zograf

The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia

Brian Hall

Milosevic: A Biography

Adam LeBor

The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s

V.P. Gagnon Jr.

The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Yale Nota Bene)

Tim Judah

Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century

Paul Mojzes

Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide

Branimir Anzulović

Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant

Dusko Doder

Kosovo: A Short History

Noel Malcolm

Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial: The Past at Stake in Post-Milošević Serbia

Eric Gordy

Armies in the Balkans 1914–18

Nigel Thomas