The Serbs : History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Second Edition

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The recent war in Bosnia re-ignited ancient hatreds and led to acts of brutality that echoed World War II atrocities: large-scale massacres and "ethnic cleansing". Bosnian Serbs, aided by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, systematically murdered, raped, and terrorized Bosnian Muslims as they strove to create a Greater Serbia. Now, journalist Tim Judah provides some perspective on the horrors of the Bosnian conflict with The Serbs. Make no mistake, Judah is not an apologist for Serbian excesses; rather, he aims to explicate the Balkans' long and violent history leading to this latest tragic conflict. The Serbs begins with the establishment of a Serbian state in the Middle Ages, then follows Serb fortunes through ensuing centuries of conquest, conflict, and oppression. Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans is hardly unique to the Bosnian war; it has been a horrific element of all Balkan conflicts, and Judah convincingly argues that Serbian nationalism is an outgrowth of the Serbs' own sufferings as victims of ethnic cleansing in past conflicts. Anyone interested in current affairs--particularly in the Balkans--will find Tim Judah's The Serbs an engrossing and important exploration of the Bosnian conflict.


From Library Journal
Judah, a correspondent for the LondonTimes and the Economist, satisfies a critical need in the burgeoning literature of the former Yugoslavia by focusing on a single nation. Yugoslavia's destruction emerges less as an event of malicious volition than as the consequence of the "lie" of South Slav unity after World War I. This perspective combines a broad interpretation of nationalism in Serbia proper with the involvement of outside actors and the Serb diaspora. Judah is at his best in depicting the Serbs' powerful myths about their history, their post-World War II repression, and their exploitation by Slobodan Milo sevi'c. For all its detail, this is not a history of Serbia but a work of interpretation whose judgment on recent events is controversial. Neither minimizing the region's historical violence nor exculpating those responsible, the author shuns the simplistic platitudes of religous atavism for a more complex "cycle of vengeance" throughout the area. The book's scope and quality recommend it a place alongside such durable works as Ivo Banac's The National Question in Yugoslavia (1984). For all academic and larger public libraries.?Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ., ErieCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Aleksa Djilas
Tim Judah has written a lively and balanced history of the Serbs....We learn how political and intellectual elites used the Serbs' suffering through history as a foundation for a nationalistic ideology ... and we also learn how a noble struggle for national liberation easily slides into a brutal fight against neighbors of different religion or nationality.


From Kirkus Reviews
Stressing the Serbs' misuse and mythologizing of history, Judah offers an insightful, informed, and trenchant consideration of their history and their collective outlook. The Serbs is a stylish and highly readable account by an experienced journalist who has written for the London Times and the Economist. Its strength as a primer for a general readership lies in Judah's ability--unprecedented among recent journalistic accounts of the current Balkan wars--to make the behavior of individual Serbs and their leaders comprehensible by placing them in the context of Serbian and Balkan history. His presentation is nuanced, focused, and rich with motifs that he follows from the Middle Ages to the present: massive migrations, banditry and widespread violence, militias, ethnic cleansing, and enduring myths of religious and national identity (most importantly, those surrounding the Battle of Kosovo), among others. Significantly, Judah understands the deep and important nature of ties between Serbia and the Serbs outside the country proper, and explains the similarities and differences between the contemporary situation and the past. Especially effective are his citations from texts by eyewitnesses to events in Serbian history (the Balkan wars, rebellions against the Ottomans, WW II) that sound as if they were written yesterday. Judah's study will, of course, offend Serbs mightily. About the anti-Muslim sentiments in Njego's The Mountain Wreath (Serbia's most revered literary classic) he sensibly offers this view: ``Literature that elsewhere would have long been banned from schools is still, subconsciously or not, shaping the worldview of Serbian children.'' He also asserts that, when faced with the Bosnian question, ``many national and sane Serbs simply cease to function as such. They prefer their own long-held convictions to facts which would force them to rethink everything they hold dear.'' Judah's excellent book stands out in a cluttered field, offering the key to Serbia's behavior over the past decade. In Serbia, Judah observes, ``It is what people believe rather than what is true that matters.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Journalist Timothy Judah witnessed firsthand many of the most horrifying episodes of the war in former Yugoslavia while on assignment from 1990- 1995. Judah offers here a history of the Serbs from medieval times to the present, combining a gripping personal description of the war with a skillful analysis of the historical and cultural context out of which it emerged. For this paperback edition Judah adds observations on the emergence of a more moderate Bosnian Serb leadership, and on the worrying signs of a possible new war, this time in Kosovo.


From the Inside Flap
Journalist Tim Judah witnessed firsthand many of the most horrifying episodes of the war in former Yugoslavia which he has covered since the first shot, in 1991. Judah offers here a history of the Serbs from medieval times to the present, combining a gripping personal description of the war with a skillful analysis of the historical and cultural context out of which it emerged. For this new paperback edition Judah adds observations on the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the war in Kosovo, and NATO's 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia.


About the Author
Timothy Judah was Balkans correspondent for the London Times and the Economist, reporting from Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and the former Yugoslavia. He wrote a major series on the war in Kosovo for the New York Review of Books. He is also the author of Kosovo: War and Revenge, published by Yale University Press.


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