The Balkans, 1804 2012: Nationalism, War And The Great Powers

Local Description

Description: In this celebrated, landmark history of the Balkans, Misha Glenny investigates the roots of the bloodshed, invasions and nationalist fervour that have come to define our understanding of the south-eastern edge of Europe. In doing so, he reveals that groups we think of as implacable enemies have, over the centuries, formed unlikely alliances, thereby disputing the idea that conflict in the Balkans is the ineluctable product of ancient grudges. And he exposes the often-catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the rest of Europe, raising profound questions about recent Western intervention.

Updated to cover the last decade's brutal conflicts in Kosovo and Macedonia, the surge of organised crime in the region, the rise of Turkey and the rocky road to EU membership, The Balkans remains the essential and peerless study of Europe's most complex and least understood region.

Review: "Excellent . . . Glenny's audacious theme is that the Balkans are not a freestanding powder keg, but a 'powder trail' laid by the great powers themselves." - Dusko Doder, The New Republic

"Misha Glenny is the wisest and most reflective of all the Western journalists who have covered this part of Europe in the past two decades . . . this was an enormously ambitious book to undertake, but it is the book which Europe and America need." - Neal Ascherson, Observer (UK)

"His book covers an amazing amount of historical and geographical ground, ranging from early nineteenth-century Greece to Kosovo the day before yesterday. . . . This is popular history of the Norman Davies school, conceived on a large scale, highly readable, accessible, full of the music of the past. Its great strengths are evocation, fascinating detail and narrative sweep. A great achievement." - Timothy Garton Ash, Mail on Sunday (UK)

"Above all, the book is justified by the insights which add up to a convincing picture of the problems." - Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Sunday Times (London)

"An endeavor which deserves extraordinary admiration and as yet has no rival." - Jonathan Steele, Guardian (UK)

Author Biography: Misha Glenny was born in 1958 and educated at Bristol University and Charles University in Prague. His coverage of the fall of communism in 1989-90 was widely acclaimed. During the Yugoslavia crisis of the early 1990s he was Central Europe correspondent for the BBC World Service. In 1993 he won a Sony Award for his coverage of Yugoslavia. Glenny speaks German, Czech and Serbo-Croat and has lived and worked all over the Balkans. His books include DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You and the highly praised McMafia, 'one of the essential non-fiction works of our time', which has been adapted as a major BBC 1 drama for 2018.

Description

A refreshed edition of the landmark history of the Balkans.

Author description

MISHA GLENNY was born in 1958 and educated at Bristol University and Charles University in Prague. His coverage of the fall of communism in 1989-90 was widely acclaimed. During the Yugoslavia crisis of the early 1990s he was Central Europe correspondent for the BBC World Service. In 1993 he won a Sony Award for his coverage of Yugoslavia. Glenny speaks German, Czech, Serbo-Croat and Portuguese and has lived and worked all over the Balkans. His books include DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You and the highly praised McMafia, 'one of the essential non-fiction works of our time', which has been adapted as a major BBC 1 drama.