Rating: 
Summary: The Balkans
Review: Misha Glenny's The Balkans is an outstanding effort to make sense of the current imbroglio by placing it into historical context. Too many people have no understanding of the region's past, so the temptation to conclude that "those people have hated one another for a thousand years" legitimizes sensationalized media reports. Glenny's intent to prove otherwise resulted in this provocative and engrossing account.Glenny argues there is no historical basis for national hatreds visible today. During the Ottoman period Serb and Croat, Muslim and Christian lived side by side with little hostile interaction. Religion and culture superseded political identities in defining Balkan society. Glenny does not dispute the theory that the Ottoman Empire was the "sick man of Europe" but the Ottomans did provide a stabilizing presence in the area, even after the Serb rebellion of 1804. However, Balkan history is far from benign. War has always been a determinant in the political landscape. Unfortunately, brutal murder, rape, and carnage were characteristics that survived modernizing efforts. Throughout the 19th century, individual Balkan groups took on the Ottomans (Serbia in 1804, Greece from 1821-30, Croatia in 1848) with varying outcomes, but it was not until 1885 that two Balkan nations first fought one another. Beginning in 1878, but particularly after 1885, the storm that eventually became World War One began to take shape. Soon the whole world was impacted by Balkan history. But the Balkans were not solely responsible for any of the world's conflicts, and they certainly do not have a monopoly on war-related atrocities. Yet this does not mean present Serb-Croat and/or Bosnian tensions were inevitable. In fact, Glenny writes of specific dates when Serbs and Croats came to blows (as in World War Two, 1967, or after 1991) but implies the interim there was relatively calm. Bosnia is specifically discussed at certain points (1908, 1914, 1992) but it is not a scene of nonstop bloodletting. Glenny's work reflects a masterful understanding of his subject. Many readers may learn of events for the first time. The Greek-Turkish War of 1921-3, or the several pre1999 incidents of conflicts over Kosovo are examples. A Serb bias is noticeable, and his portrayal of Stalin as cooperative with the West detracts somewhat from the book, but the overall effort is excellent. The Balkans should be considered by anyone interested in southeast Europe.
Rating: 
Summary: A great book!
Review: Simply the best historical overview of the Balkans. Meticulous, very well written, fair and balanced. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: This is a great book about balkans. I have met the writer in Istanbul airport while reading his book and now I have a signed version of it. The book explains all the events that took place in the Balkans in great detail and his style of writing is very understandable.
Rating: 
Summary: Quasi-rhetorical compendium with a too broad scope.
Review: While no doubt can be cast upon the fact that Glenny collected an impressive cluster of material, the particular brand of "crystallization process" in the narrowest sense of the first expression, when juxtaposed vis-a-vis journalistic template, inherently brings lack of a goal-acomplishing purpose .While the goal is precisely outlined, subservient to it is a kind of "going nowhere", purely stylistic attempt to recollect - undoubtedly for any post-festum reader - chosen, ad hoc fragments of historic, ethnologic, journalistic bits into "Yin-Yang" harmonization of moral (!) implications of various factors examined in this publication, one that is leaning toward objective more that several, obviously agitprop books, whose appearance"incidentally" was concordant in time with major realpolitik exercises.
More of concrete nature can be written that debunks liberal-mannerism of Glenny, including a list of otherwise non-controversial mistakes within the publication's factography-and there are plenty of these-, but that would be an over-extensive itemization.Other significant dimension gone entirely wrong is the subtle, almost subliminal agitation within the more monadic units of the books, dealing with certain particularity toward which an author of his vast knowledge, one anticipates, could have had a more synergic approach, rather than alignment with conformism within foreign schools of Balkan, leading among which is Pan-Germanic.All this combined with the belletristic tone of the 19th century traveler-through-exotic-land type, in some cases going to the "Lombrosoisms" (not once in the part of Author's opus!), for example,when describing fmr.Yugoslav Minister: "round serbian peasant face"-p. 573, straightens the impression of overbearing, archaic ribaldry.
Misha Glenny has powerful hallmark imprinted on his monographic works, and in many cases something resembling ad hominem criticism is inevitable.If the book is to be scrutinized on it's own merits, the definition would be "a large reader of Balkan History's part that rendered the word 'Balkanism', crafted in a picturesque, broad-brushed manner by brush immersed in anecdotes and too attached to the subject substance, rather then one made of facts, logic and free and also holistic interpretation". Recommendable for certain aspects, from better to ones of lesser value: wide panorama, jargon-free style, efficient transition among events.Yet it is too paternalistic, gentlemanly but paternalistic to the Balkan (yes, it is an anthropomorphic entity in the book, too).It could be used by scholars and student armed with skepticism and solid database, but not as a final statement on a matter.Also recommendable as a primer for anybody interested in the outlined themes, with the same warning regarding the imploring incredulity.
| 
