Product Description

The violent disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991-92 brought about the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, atrocities on massive scale, and a new term, "ethnic cleansing", for the tactics of nationalist civil war. The failure of Western action to prevent the spread of violence or to negotiate peace disheartened Europeans in their drive to greater unity and turned the euphoria about the "new world order" into cynicism about US leadership. On their own, and as a warning of similar conflicts yet to come, the Yugoslav wars present the first major challenge to US foreign policy after the Cold War. Why did the Yugoslav state break up? And why did the break-up lead to war? In this book, Susan Woodward analyzes the causes of the Yugoslav wars and argues that focusing on ancient ethnic hatreds and military aggression misunderstands nationalism in post-communist states.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #283413 in Books
• Published on: 1994-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 556 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent
Most comprehensive analysis of political, ecomnomic and social disintergration of Yugoslavia during the last 20 years. Woodward's vast knowledge and posession of data is breath taking. Real page turner.

Excellent analysis of causes of war in former Yugoslavia
Woodward writes an interesting book full of facts, quotes and statistics which back up her argument.

Instead of just talking vaguely about ancient hatreds of world war two she asks why Yugoslavia split up when it did - i.e in the 90s , a decade after Tito died.

It was not Tito's death but free market economic policies imposed on Yugoslavia by the IMF after the end of the Cold War that led to the inequality and rapid rise in unemployment in Serbia that allowed opportunists like Milosevic to ride a wave of nationalism to power.

This in turn led to civil war.

This book is long and not written in an especially exciting style but it is full of solid information and subtle analysis.

No Thesis
A book with no thesis that fails to offer any new insight into the Balkan War.