I was fortunate enought to read this book while taking a class taught by the author, Dr. Peter Sugar, at the Unversity of Washington in 1983. This is not light reading, but will be engrossing to those to whom History is a passion. I would also recommend any of Dr. Sugar's books regarding the History of Eastern Europe and the Balkan States (Dr. Sugar is a Bosnian, raised in Hungary who came to the United States at about the time of WWII, as I recall) as the author's insights and clarity are superb!!

"Stabilizing and Integrating the Balkans" is an extremely insightful and timely analysis of how-in a globalized world-national governments and international organizations can form a network to deal with regional conflicts. As the foundation for his analysis, Paul Welfens describes the conditions in the Balkans at the end of the Kosovo War and analyzes how the international community has tried to create the conditions for sustained economic growth and political stability in the region. In addition to providing relevant and detailed economic, political, and institutional information, Paul Welfens looks critically at the key actors of the Stability Pact. The book shows that the approached used in the Balkans could become a model for future cooperation among national governments and international organizations to deal with similar political and economic challenges in other parts of the world. Paul Welfens, however, also identifies inconsistencies that should be overcome. Areas of particular concern are the future transatlantic relationship between Europe and the U.S. as well as the enlargement of the European Union.

While the book focuses on the Balkans in the aftermath of the Kosovo crisis, the reader cannot avoid asking the question of how the experiences from the Balkans could also be used to overcome political instability and poor economic conditions in other conflict regions of the world. For example, in the aftermath of the events in the U.S. on September 11, the international community is confronted with a volatile situation in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries such as Pakistan and India. In many respect, a network approach similar to that in the Balkans will be required to stabilize the conditions in that part of the world as well.

The book is an extremely valuable source for anybody interested in the Balkans. However, it appeals to an even larger audience and is very useful for economic policymakers as well as political scientists. It is highly recommended.

This collection of articles results from the first-hand experience of scholars who are specialists in studying the countries they are writing about. The articles focus on contemporary Eastern Europe, are readable, understandable for the non-academic, and interesting.

This book is an examination of the people that lived in the Dalmatian hinterland of today's Croatia. It looks at the ways the people of coastal Dalmatia and the West perceived these people. Not an easy read for the average reader but well worth the read for those with a real keen interest in Croatian and Venetian history like myself.

Tomasevich did a phenomenal job on a daunting subject: the political and economic history of Yugoslavia during the Second World War, focusing on Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. This massive book will be especially valuable for the chapters on economic activity in the Axis-occupied Independent State of Croatia from 1941 to 1945, material that has rarely been presented in English in such detail (over a hundred pages in the two chapters on this subject). The sections on the many religious groups of Yugoslavia are likewise comprehensive, with a great deal of new information. The bibliography is in itself a triumph of thoroughness.

What makes the book not only useful but remarkable is the author's story of how he conducted his research, interviewing contentious sources and wading through the conflicting evidence on controversial topics such as the numbers of people murdered by the several parties to the conflict (Nazis, Italian Fascists, Ustase, Chetniks, Partisans). His analysis is masterful and sensible.

My only complaint is the book's high price. I can only hope that there will be a paperback edition, as this work is too significant to go out of print.

This book is a "must" source if you want to learn about the former-Yugoslavia's history, economic system, and its recent war (and related Balkan crisis). I found it indispensible to use during a course study, and an easy-to-follow, knowledge-packed source for a paper related to the recent Bosnian war.

This book is timely. The U.S. and its NATO underlings/allies are bombing the hell out of the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia under the absurd pretense of "protecting human rights." The reality--that it's a war to crush the remnants of socialism and to gain control over this strategic region--is explained in this book. The articles describe very eloquently the history of how the U.S. engineered the breakup of Yugoslavia and promoted divisions among the nationalities. Reading the book, you understand where the so-called Kosovo 'liberation' army would have come from--a creation of the U.S. CIA terrorists, not a genuine liberation movement.

Many of the articles are written by activists leading the anti-war movement in the United States, including organizers with the International Action Center, which issued the call for the June 5 march on the Pentagon to demand an end to the bombing of Yugoslavia. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who has courageously turned on his former colleagues in the government, also contributed. Others include Serbian, Jewish and other Yugoslav writers, historians and activists.

"Nato in the Balkans" gives the best and most convincing explanation for the U.S.-led NATO attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

It documents the historical root of the present conflict which points to the Clinton White House. Yes, even Democrats can be vicious warmongers in the land of the free.

The book enlightens. After reading it, you understand why Serbs and Roma people are now being ethnically cleansed from Kosovo under the "watchful eye" of NATO and KFOR forces.

The economic motivation of the capitalist class, which the politicians in Washington represent in our great democracy, is revealed, with plenty of documentation in this very excellent piece of work.

I'd really give it six stars, if I could.

Nato in the Balkans was such an interesting, information-filled book that helped so tremendously in clearing the cobwebs of corporate media cleansing, that I finished the book in record time.

It is well written, very clear, documented to the hilt. It exposes how the U.S. government (and Germany) stirred up ethnic rivalry in the Balkans so that they could have a pretext for intervening. It was a coldly calculated plan to take over the area, in a move towards the oil wealth of the Caspian Sea.

The U.S. and its NATO allies don't give a hoot about human rights, not here in the U.S. or elsewhere. But this is the new cover. Before these imperialist wars were fought for "freedom and democracy." Now it's supposed to be about human rights. Well, these warmongers might as well be talking abount humming mites, or humid nights; they couldn't care less about the human rights of anyone.

It's all about corporate greed and the need for the capitalist system to keep expanding or face collapse.

The disintegration of the former Soviet Union--which the U.S. also helped to engineer--only emboldened the warmongers in Washington and at the Pentagon, along with their junior partners in Europe.

Come out of the deep sleep of U.S. consumer society. Open your mind to what's going on in the world. Make the links between imperialist war abroad and reactionary domestic policies, like the gutting of the Welfare system.

Guess who's paying for the Pentagon war machine? It ain't the Rockefellers or the Mellons.

Pick up a copy of Nato in the Balkans asap, and tell your friends about it. It's like a breath of fresh air. And in the rancid atmosphere of north America, we all need it.

It is almost sad that the most accurate historic book about Bosnia was writen, not by a person born in Bosnia, but someone born outside it's borders. In Bosnia today there are three official versions of history, Bosnian, Croatian and Serb, remnances of which we can see in many loaded comments listed bellow, none of which give Bosnian history respect and accuracy it deserves. They are mostly expansions of the myths and deluded ilusions of people who never thought of Bosnia as their home, their homeland. Unfortunately, as it has happened so many times before, the few were able to tint the picture of Bosnia, not only to the world outside, but also tint the picture of Bosnia to people in Bosnia themselves. It is absurd, but true. Malcolm takes a bold step to clear that picture to both insiders and outsiders and bright the historical perspective closer to the truth.
The author takes a fresh and unbiased look at the centuries of Bosnian history, and most of all he backs it up with an enormous detail and footnote. He is not just speculating, he is listing facts....isn't that something fresh for history of a country, where loudest (and equally sadly most successful) proponents base their entire knowledge on vague narrative and myth.
The most interesting part of the book for me was his unrestrained bashing of the UN, EU, US and the world in general for lack of action; of countless narrowminded envoys these countries assigned to "rescue" Bosnia. This part of the book has a great place in any history book for it shows ineptness and impotence of the world community to solve a problem when there are no vital geopolitical interests in danger-offcourse I am talking about the major players.
All in all, great unbiased book, should find its way as an official version of Bosnian history, rather that the garbage the kids are being thought in Bosnia today. I recommend it to anyone even mildly interested in understanding the conflict that was imposed to my country.

Basically, the name says it all. It's a short, quick history of Bosnia written at the height of the 1990s Balkan War and designed to shoot down a number of myths that the author finds maddening. He ends up having quite a blast ripping into long-dead historians, propagandists, and contemporary journalists and politicians for messing up Bosnian history.

While you could say it's biased, the author does do a pretty decent job in covering the history of Bosnia. After taking a brief look at Early Bosnia up to 1100 the book mostly focuses on Medieval and Ottoman Bosnia before breezing through the 20th-century. If you were looking for a history of the Bosnian War don't bother, as the book was written before it was over. However, the author does cover its origins and beginning. He also very strongly makes the point that it was systematic planned genocide by Slobodan Milosevic, not so-called ancient tribal hatreds, that was responsible for much of the carnage in the conflict.

All in all it was a very good book. There's a little something for everyone. It's very well written. You can breeze through the small chapters, finish the book in a day, and get a basic outline of everything. Or you can go slow, immerse yourself in the little details, and become a genuine mini-expert on Bosnian history. If you hate foreign words, then there might be a problem because the author uses them constantly and often describes the origins of words to show history. But despite that it's still easy to read. In the end, I came way with a better understanding of topics not generally covered in the history books: Bosnia, the Balkans, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and Islam among other things.

Being a Bosnian, I find this book highly valuable and unusually accurate. As my fellow Bosnian Adnan Mesic pointed out in his review, this is a very accurate and comprehensive account of Bosnian history. I agree with Adnan that it is a shame that the most lucid and most importantly unbiased book was written by an American. Malcolm divulges in his book major historical events which may have contributed to the war in Bosnia. It is clear that Malcolm had conducted a meticulous research before he completed this book; this is highly evident from the great number of references which are included. All in all, this is an indispensable reference that will provide an important insight into the history of Bosnia. Strongly recommended.

Why all forms of genuine pacifism are sometimes criticized and labeled with etiquetes whose function is discreditation of the author,when within mr.Chomsky's works one can not find neither "right-wingism" or "left-wingism" but only TRUTH-wingism.Is perhaps lack of social action caused by the disregard for real reasons behind a conflict,which in turn is product of perception that "this is just another "press-buttons-and-win" war.Chomsky outlined what is know by anybody living in the Balcan-because societies there are highly political ones and what is happening in "neighboors yard" is very well known-that West undertook such military adventure that simply instantly reversed everything achivied in building post-cold war relations,simply because they wanted to crush down only country that did not accepted anexation into this allegedly defence alliance.Noam Chomsky is apealing to public concience with his illustrations how democracy evolves into dualistic system-and how antagonisms produced from such trend are turning "citizens" into "observers"-situation where politics is dominated by pragmatism,that always produces only domino-effect,therefore generating various forms of social crisis.In the case of Kosovo,clearly situation present in the middle east is almost duplicated-only the islamic enclaves of western balcan are playing the role of hammer in the hands of NATO-against Russian interest,and for establishing "green belt"-safe coridor for energetic resources. Ethnic Cleansing by Serbia was Fiction... KLA was created to provoke uprising,and not vice versa... Enormous "shocking facts" and "evidence" was fabricated...(do you remember the famous:"dear viewers,what you are going to see contains.." ? What NATO did and said was nothing short of Shakespearian "tale told by idiot"-and Chomsky offers wealth of hard facts,together with exegesis that is inclusive of entire situation...finnaly,after publication of this book,many of those facts,at first proclaimed "Belgrade's propaganda" are confessed by NATO-that everything was fiction-and that all they want are political puppets in Belgrade,like those instaled in neighbouring states.Only those who are brave enough will have power to stand by the truth expressed in this book-and liberate themselves from chains of devastating mind-controling propaganda.

Chomsky with his usual massive documentation shows that the same elite institutions and motivations which, in this country, butchered or helped butcher millions of Indians, hundreds of thousands of Fillipinos, millions, of Vietnames, Laoations and Cambodians, tens of thousands of East Timorese, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans, and so on, were behind the "humanitarian intervention" in Kosovo.

Chomsky shows that the claim that while the U.S. and its allies may have done some very horrible things to third world in the past, that era is in past (part of the Cold War,etc.)and a new epoch has dawned where states are free to exercise their power to zealously promote human rights and fight dictators, is not tenable with the slightest effort toward serious analyses (as opposed to ,say, believing every pronouncment of our leaders and their dupes in the media). After all, what are we to make of the fact that the Clinton administration refused to contribute to efforts for a peacekeeping force to mitigate horrendous atrocities in Sierra Leone and, shortly before the Kosovo bombings began, refused to provide a paltry sum for a UN peacekeeping force in the Republic of Congo for the same purpose. Why is it that the Clinton administration was providing massive military and economic assistance to a fascist regime in Turkey, which as documented for years by the major human rights organizations, Turkish dissidents, and even the Turkish government, has slaughtred tens of thousands of Kurds, created millions of internal Kurdish refugees, burned thousands of Kurdish villages using U.S. weapons. Why is it that the Clinton administration was (and is) providing massive weapons and assistance to a death squad/military run "democracy" in Colombia, which according to the State departments own human rights report, conducted about the same murders, created around the same number of refugees, burned around the same number of villages, etc. as during the period of serious violence before the bombings in Kosovo began (February 98' to March 99')? Why is it that the Clinton adminstration, continuing U.S. policies since December 1975, continued to have normal military, economic and diplomatic relations with the military generals in Indonesia, even as they were stepping atrocities against the people of East Timor in order to deter the people from voting to remove themselves from Indonesia's fascist rule in the September 1999 U.N. sponsored referendum, and then sat on its hands for a few weeks after the referndum before making any remotely serious gestures, compelled mostly by Australian public opinion, toward stopping the terror and murder that the Indonesians were paying back the people for daring to exercise their right of self-determination?

The answer is simply that the Clinton administration is no different that past administrations. Alot of the leftists who supported the war admit that this is the case but claim that in the instance alot of good was done by the great powers in stopping genocidal tactics perpetrated by a genocidal madman. Chomsky devotes considerable space to documenting (what should quite obvious) that misery and death vastly increased after verification monitors left Kosovo on March 19th and the Nato began bombing five days later. It was only natural for the Serbs to react with such violence and murder. After all, as Chomsky shows but which the mainstream media has obscured, Nato told them at the Ramouillet talks that they must accept a Nato occupation of Kosovo and grant them unhindered access to the rest of Yugoslavia or be bombed. A Serb parliament proposal of March 23 accepting all Nato demands except for the Nato occupation force and allowing for negotiations on an international security presence in Kosovo was reported by the major wire services but quickly died in the rest of the media and was ignored by the U.S. government. Under these conditions, with Nato about to unleash its massive war machine to destroy Serb and Kosovar infrastructure (hitting very few military targets) and drive much of the Serb population out of Kosovo, killing thousands of Serbs (and many Albanians too) and with that force that was about to rein massive destruction upon it, not too discretely heavily funding a terrorist group claiming to represent its most volatile minority, it is horrible but strategically understandable that a nation would undertake to cleanse itself of that minority. That atrocities would vastly escalate once the bombing started and there would be an explosion of refugees has been noted by many journalists, was "absolutely predictable" in the words commanding general Wesely Clark a few days after the bombings began. When the peace treaty was signed, Chomsky noted that Nato agreed on paper to the proposals of the Serb parliament of March 23rd and subsequent proposals by Milosevic. But only on paper that is. Nato proceeded to impose its version of the treaty, with media acceptance and ignoring of the truth, commanding and dominating the security force that occupied Kosovo whereas the treaty actually only called for an "international securtiy presence" under "UN auspicies" with "substantial Nato participation" and nothing more.

Chomsky also deals with some other effects of the war. The democratic opposition to Milosevic was severely damaged, especially in the fervently anti-milosevic province of Vojvodina. Other nations in the third world as well as the first expressed great dismay at the war, as a survey of their media demonstrates, and will be further enriching world arms manufacturers as they load up on lethal weapons in order to try to defend themselves against the United States should they cross its path.

In the past, the United States used Russian imperialism as a fraudulent pretext to destroy third world nations or indiginous liberation movements who dared to attempt to develop their economies and political structure outside of American domination. With the cold war gone, policy has been modified but it is essentially the same. For seeing the main reason for the Kosovo war, Chomsky refers to the recently declassified 1995 document of our nuclear arsenal command entitled "Essentials of Post Cold War Detterernce" which argues that the United States should portray itself as very irrational and vindictive toward the rest of the world so that they will be scared into submission and ruthelessly crush any nation, no matter how weak, if it should dare threaten its "interests." i.e. resist its economic and political hegemony.

I'll begin by disclosing a personal interest: Prof. Chomsky and I have the same publisher, and I had the honor of voicing the book-on-tape version of this book. But facts are facts, verifiable whatever the source, and the information presented here is well-researched, largely unpublicized, and deeply disturbing.

The mass media's consistent parroting of NATO's shifting versions of the causes and purposes of the war, and their Orwellian convenient forgetting of their own earlier reports as need be, are chronicled in detail. The Balkan war is placed in the context of ongoing US, UK, and NATO policies in other parts of the world (Turkey, for example) to devastating effect. And the final chapters, detailing the reasons for the ongoing expansion of military force and flouting of international law -- and how current NATO policies are actually making the world a more dangerous place -- left me chilled while doing the reading.

This is terrific, important work. I was honored to be associated with it, and I recommend it in the strongest terms.

In this book of travels, Robert Kaplan picks up where he left off. Kaplan, whose "Balkan Ghosts" became the point of departure for those State Department and other US government officials requiring a quick education about the complexities and entrenchment of the Balkan mind in the days leading up to the NATO confrontations with Serbia (including Bill Clinton, who is rumored to have delayed action in Yugoslavia in part because of Kaplan's insights), travels to the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and then on to the Trans-Caucuses (known as "Tartary" to the Elizabethans). Like Kaplan's other travel books, this is more than a traveler's book of anecdotes; this is a book of history and lost histories and life on big historical divides. Especially relevant is his section on Armenia, a nation with its own (lowercase) diaspora and rich history. More generally, this book provides a workable education on the state of the Trans-Caucuses region, which is among the least understood regions on the planet - no small matter, since, with Russia's increased importance in the energy markets, this is a tract that stands to gain hugely in relative world importance.

Robert Kaplan's book "Eastward to Tartary" is a bold and incisive firsthand look into the present and possible futures of Eastern Europe, the Near East and the Caucuses.

Kaplan's reflections on his journeys give the reader great food for thought. Kaplan deftly traces the possible fault lines of future conflicts and global problem spots. His conclusions give fresh urgency to the Biblical injunction to "be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16).

"Eastward to Tartary" is not your typical piece of travel writing. It not only describes the areas dealt with, it analyzes the possible future of each region. The book is no mere academic missive written by a policy wonk either. Chapter after chapter, Kaplan demonstrates his skill as a writer. He is a true craftsman with words. I read this book quite quickly due to how compelling and well written it is. Each chapter draws the reader into the next.

Books like this should be required reading for leaders in the West. Not everyone will agree with Kaplan's conclusions. This notwithstanding, "Eastward to Tartary" is one heck of a wake-up call. I recommend it highly.

I have read several of Kaplan's books and he continues his winning streak in this one. Unlike many travel writers who merely offer westernized descriptions of people and scenery in places that are already well known, Kaplan covers areas that most of us in the western world are unfamiliar with. Interesting places in this book include Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. He also focuses on history and politics, and has remarkable insights into the possible futures of the regions he visits, and how the past influences the present and future to a much greater extent than in the West. Some key insights offered by Kaplan here include the notion that Europe is currently splitting into regions that are eerily similar to the Ottoman and Holy Roman empires of ancient times, with the collapse of communism and the weakening of NATO. Kaplan also predicts that the next Yugoslavia-style bloodbath, which will drag in the rest of the world, will occur in the Caucasus region (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan). Tellingly, Chechnya is not too far away. Kaplan knows what he's talking about, as he predicted the Yugoslavia disaster back in the late 1980's. And throughout the book Kaplan proves that the collapse of communism and the rise of so-called democracy is only a good thing at a high level of international politics. But for millions and millions of regular people, life has become far more dangerous and miserable.

Since the portion of this book covering Romania and Bulgaria is meant as a sequel to Kaplan's earlier "Balkan Ghosts," and since some of the other areas covered are also featured in "The Ends of the Earth," this book is slightly weaker than those two masterpieces. Kaplan also occasionally stumbles into cultural arrogance when dealing with non-Western people and politics. However, these are slight weaknesses in a very strong book that offers highly enlightening insights into the history and peoples in areas that Americans should stop ignoring.