Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia

FROM THE PUBLISHER

About the Author

Louis Sell is a retired Foreign Service Officer who served twenty-eight years with the U.S. Department of State. He spent eight years in the former Yugoslavia with both the Department of State and non-governmental organizations. From 1995-1996 he served as Political Deputy to the first High Representative for Bosnian Peace Implementation. In that capacity, Sell attended the Dayton Peace Conference and participated in the first year of implementation of the Dayton accords. In 2000 he served as Kosovo Director of the International Crisis Group. He currently teaches at the University of Maine at Farmington.

SYNOPSIS

In Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia former U.S. foreign service officer Louis Sell fills a gap in the literature on the Yugoslav conflicts by covering both the domestic Yugoslav side of the collapse and the history and consequences of international interventions in the wars in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, Bosnia in 1992-1995, and Kosovo from 1998-1999. Sell focuses on the life and career of Milosevic, from the perspective of both a diplomatic insider intimately familiar with the region and a scholar who has researched all the available English and Serbo-Croatian sources.

Sell spent much of his diplomatic career in Eastern Europe and Russia, including eight years in Yugoslavia between 1974 and 2000, and witnessed the events that contributed to the dissolution and ultimate destruction of Yugoslavia. In Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia he provides first-hand observations of Milosevic from the heady days of his rise to power and, later, in the endgame of the Bosnian war, including the Dayton Peace Conference.

Drawing on a wide range of published material as well as interviews with Yugoslav and foreign participants, Sell covers such areas as Milosevic's relationship to the military, his responsibility for war crimes, his methods of persuasion and negotiation, and his notoriously explosive personality.

FROM THE CRITICS

More than a biography, this book provides a compact, coherent review of the sad drama that occupied so much of the West's attention in the 1990s."--Foreign Affairs "The war crimes trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic . . . makes this political biography especially timely. . . . [V]aluable for its background on the current trial and coverage of recent history of a troubled region. Recommended for most libraries."--Library Journal "Sell . . . offer[s] a shrewd assessment of the former dictator."--Dusko Doder, The Nation "[C]ompelling. . . . Sell's account, based on both the public record and interviews with many of the principals as well as his personal experiences, offers an impressive yield of telling insights and revealing anecdotes."--Andrew Nagorski, Washington Post Book World "[T]horough."--Tim Judah, The New York Review of Books "Sell's book is certainly the most comprehensive and up-to-date on both Milosevic and, as his subtitle suggests, the destruction of Yugoslavia. It is detailed and well sourced . . . Sell's hefty tome will be a major work of reference for many years to come."--Tim Judah, Survival "Sell, a former U.S. foreign service officer with many years of service in the Balkans, maintains the detached, objective style that has become appropriate for the anatomization of a criminal. . . . [Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia] is the better for being written by someone with an educated sympathy for both the Serbs and, as they were once known, the Yugoslavs. . . . A strikingly useful aspect of this book is the detail it gives, often at first hand, about the shameful vacillations-to put it no higher-of the Western mediators."--Christopher Hitchens, Wilson Quarterly "Louis Sell's study is a . . . substantial book. . . . His is the most comprehensive and up-to-date account of the war so far published in English. He is fair-minded and keeps his diplomatic cool until the end, when with justice he calls Mr. Milosevic 'an ugly killer' who even now denies the fact of horrendous crimes, and his own responsibility for them."--The Economist "[A] detailed account of events . . . ."--Woodford McClellan, The Washington Times "The very readable text does a good job of piecing together memoirs and other accounts published in Serbo-Croatian, which are interspersed with colorful and, occasionally, valuable anecdotes from Sell's own diplomatic activities. . . . [A] book well worth reading."--C. Ingrao, Choice "[R]iveting. . . ."--Ian Traynor, The Guardian

Meier

Sell is authoritative on Milosevic's fall from power. . . . [He] clearly knows the territory.—, Boston Globe

Traynor

[R]iveting. . . .— The Guardian

Christopher Hitchens

Sell, a former U.S. foreign service officer with many years of service in the Balkans, maintains the detached, objective style that has become appropriate for the anatomization of a criminal. . . . [Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia] is the better for being written by someone with an educated sympathy for both the Serbs and, as they were once known, the Yugoslavs. . . . A strikingly useful aspect of this book is the detail it gives, often at first hand, about the shameful vacillations-to put it no higher-of the Western mediators.— Wilson Quarterly

Andrew Nagorski

[C]ompelling. . . . Sell's account, based on both the public record and interviews with many of the principals as well as his personal experiences, offers an impressive yield of telling insights and revealing anecdotes.—Andrew NagorskiRead all 15 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Warren Zimmermann

Louis Sell brings to his fascinating study of the Serbian tyrant a deep experience in the Balkans, an authority based on his own participation in some of the events he describes, and a keen analytical eye. This is a first-rate book. — United States Ambassador to Yugoslavia, 1989-1992

Carl Bildt