THE BALKANS: NATIONALISM, WAR, AND THE GREAT POWERS, 1804-2011 PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Misha Glenny | 774 pages | 25 Sep 2012 | Penguin Books | 9780142422564 | English | New York, United States The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-2011 PDF Book Its great strengths are evocation, fascinating detail and narrative sweep. The Old Revolutionaries. Overall a great and entertaining read. It took about a century to do it, but eventually, the Ottomans were essentially chased out of Europe, confined to the small chunk of land west of Istanbul that Turkey holds today. But two episodes stood out for me even on that beak background. Balanced and riveting from start to finish, I highly recommend this book to any history lover; especially those interested in Eastern Europe. Things seem to be steadily improving and people are hopeful that the 21st century can be different for the people of the Balkans, if they can survive the economic crisis that is currently bankrupting Greece and hurting everyone. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. The modern history of the Balkans is not pretty. One thing I got out of the book is that the Balkans are a very complicated region and blanket statements don't apply. The Bad points: He downplayed the heroic resistance teh Serbs gave to the Ottomans. I used it as a research source when writing one of my books and I also required it to be used as a textbook when I created the course "Balkans in Peace and Conflict" while I was a professor at AMU. Only, says Glenny, if Europe and the West now embark on a determined programme to haul these nations out of poverty and social backwardness. It takes so many thing into account including the great power relationships, individual country cultures and histories and the interaction between the two. Read this a few years back - just remembered when someone I know put it as 'want to read'. Having read up on Ottoman, Habsburg, Hungarian, and Greek history before this book definitely helped me follow events and locations better though it would have benefited from more maps! And, as the author makes clear, there seems to be no end to the depths it can descend from there: coup, counter-coup, assassination, exploitation, and the kind of genocide that makes the Nazis seem like school-yard bullies in comparison. Parting the Desert. Paige Arthur. This troubled region has long been seen as backwards and troublesome in traditional Western narratives, ranging from Bismark's prediction that the war would begin over 'some damned foolish thing in the Balkans' to the general perception that the region is always a half-step outside of modernity- a perception that Glenny turns on its head with his well-defended thesis that Western Europe bears much of the blame when it comes to the history of warfare that has rocked the region over the course of the past century. There is a brief outline about its history in the book. Balkans Yugoslavia. Sep 30, Colin Heaton rated it it was amazing. So for me this book was full of discoveries. This is an awesome book. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Alistair Horne. Eight Great Comedies. Jan 29, Pak Sun Ng rated it liked it. Nov 07, Matt Powell rated it really liked it Shelves: owned. Tito played the West and East admirably but failed to reform the nationalistic question in the 70s - Serbs vs Croats and Serbs vs Albanians. As well as former Yugoslavia, it includes Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania, as well as the relevant information about the Ottoman empire. The first half of the book is dedicated t An overall good introduction to the modern history of the Balkans, and recommended as a starting point for those interested in learning about the region in relation to today's geopolitics. Original Title. NOOK Book. It's no surprise that he's written another book, The Fall of Yugoslavia. The influx of refugee Bosnians into our East Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago and my own former sister-in-law's mixed Yugoslav identity Serb and Bosnian --one now being instilled in my niece--has led me to read many books about the history and politics of the Balkans. This book is, in many ways, frustrating. May 18, Rita Walton rated it really liked it. The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-2011 Writer Add into this the fierce competition between the Muslims, Jews and Christians of the region and sensitivities flare. Shocking and sad… A glossary of major players would have increased my comprehension of all that went on. This makes it very easy to cause a conflagration at the whim of whoever has seized power for the moment. Read this a few years back - just remembered when someone I know put it as 'want to read'. Caucescu created a police state but was loved and wooed by the West. Glenny rejects the backward bloodfeuding peasant answer to why the Balkans are so divided and Balkanized. Misha Glenny is a great reporter with specialist knowledge of the area. In , he won a Sony Award for his coverage of Yugoslavia. Jul 25, Ekul rated it really liked it Shelves: comprehensive-exams , temp-modern-late , geo-europe , history. The World of the Shining Prince. Better to read with a dictionary He says the religious issue isn't as important as the interventionist one. Glenny's audacious theme is that the Balkans are not a freestanding powder keg, but a 'powder trail' laid by the great powers themselves. Croats and Serbs were being played off of each other instead of being encouraged to work together to create a real nation where equality is sought. Croatia and Montenegro have become vacation destinations and Slovenia has moved closer to Central Europe culturally. May 06, Rebecca rated it really liked it. But what was also shocking in that war the Croatians were killing the Serbs; the Serbs were killing Muslims and the Croatians. Glenny begins with the Serbian uprisings of , the 'slaughter of the knezes [dukes]'. No single human invention has transformed war more than the airplane—not even the atomic bomb. The author must have done an insane amount of research to get all the regional histories and perspectives. It's tedious, as most scholarly works are, but if you want to sink your teeth into the history of the Balkans particularly Yugoslavia , this is your book. Here, you can be incarcerated in the morning and then find yourself whisked behind the President's desk by evening. Not only does this give the work a fresh, almost journalistic, feel; the author's talent also ensures the narrative never sinks int The Balkans by Misha Glenny is a fascinating read about Europe's troubled heart of darkness. In this tortuous, bloodstained story are many truths, as Glenny sees. In the five days I spent getting my various affairs in order to leave Belgrade, I was met with acts and emotions a Slovenian woman I met called "so Balkan. A more detailed examination of why and how the breakup of Yugoslavia resulted in so much conflict would have helped. Comprehensive overview, extraordinary detail. Interview with Misha Glenny. May 16, Adrian Fingleton rated it it was amazing. The only thing I didn't love was that there were so many players involved which I really should have anticipated, this book encompassing a dozen different countries that I sometimes got lost on who was who and why a given event was significant. Romania was inveigled into the First World War by the Entente, and then betrayed to her butchers. Much of what I read is to better understand friends. He has a novelist's eye for set piece, for human character and for the snuff-movie grotesque of events such as the bombing of Sofia Cathedral, the murder of Serbia's king and queen by Colonel Apis and the Black Hand, or the capture of the port of Fiume by the swaggering proto-fascist poet d'Annunzio. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. Paperback —. He also didn't give sufficient mention on how th West sold them out to th communists. Only, says Glenny, if Europe and the West now embark on a determined programme to haul these nations out of poverty and social backwardness. It's all connected, intertwined - the pinnacle is of course the Yugoslav wars , and the sad things is, nothing has changed compared to or I was better familiar with the history of ex- Yugoslavia. Misha Glenny has undertaken a monumental task, to provide a readable, one volume history of what amounts to 13 countries over the relatively short period from The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-2011 Reviews As well as former Yugoslavia, it includes Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania, as well as the relevant information about the Ottoman empire. Glenny has a good style of writing that provides a good flow to the story. I loved this book. While lacking in thorough scholarly detail, the clarity of the analysis does not suffer and the reader is still rewarded with a complete and balanced picture. And Glenny doesn't change his tune in the post Cold War era. Glenny, who lived for some years in Salonika while writing this book, has a special feeling for ancient, multi-cultural maritime cities. It may mean that this book is better suited to going back as a point of reference for other readings, rather than going from cover to cover.