Customer Reviews

Beyond the Mountains of the Damned: The War Inside Kosovo

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"Beyond the MOuntains of the Damned" is a journalistic account of the 1999 war in Kosovo told through both the eyes of journalist Matthew McAllester as well as several of the victims. The senseless brutality wrought upon the Muslim majority by the Serbs is well chronicled. The Kosovo "ethnic clensing" effort lacked the systemic nature of the Nazi genocide or even the occasional grand scale of some of the atrocities committed in Bosnia, but it was no less horrific. Albnaians had their homes burned and their villiages destroyed and many were shot as the Serbs attempted to drive them out.

Most of the action in the book takes place in and around the city of Pec, in eastern Kosovo. It was among the hardest hit regions in the territory. McAllester spent the three month war infiltrating Kosovo around in this region, though he never made to Pec until after the war because he would certainly have been killed by the Serbs. Meanwhile in Pec, an ALbanian butcher named Isa Bala and his family tried to stay inconspicuous and wait out the killing. Thier fate ultimately gives this story its gravity.

The only knock against the book is that for the most part it lacks a broader perspective. The political events surrounding the war and the history that led to Kosovo's destruction get some mention, but not enough for the avearge reader. Also, the larger war outside the Pec region gets only superficial coverage. Nevertheless, this is still a disturbing account of modern genocide and of the banality of man's evil.

I followed the war in Kosovo by reading about it in the newspapers. Then, like the bulk of Americans, pretty much forgot about it once it was over. But thanks to McAllester's exquisite, journalistic eye for detail, I feel as if I was actually there, a witness somehow to the atrocities that took place.
I have never had a particular interest in, or understanding of, the Balkans. Now after reading Beyong the Mountains of the Damned I hunger to know as much as possible.
This is no ordinary historical account. It is compelling and it stays with you after you are done. It reads with the breeze of fiction. What is petrifying, however, is that the characters are real and so are their stories. Chapter 12, The Killing, may be the most powerful chapter I've ever read in any book of this kind. While reading alone, I gasped and cried out loud.
I highly recommend this book to anyone with a particular interest in Kosovo and Serbia. But it is not only for those with a specialized interest in the region. It is for anyone who appreciates good writing and courageous reporting.

McAllester has told the story of the war in Kosovo from his own perspective, as a journalist moving around the province without official sanction, and from the perspective of several Kosovars living in the city of Pec, like most of Kosovo a formerly Serbian city which is now primarily Albanian.

This story is effective. The violent finale is one the reader will see coming, but it remains shocking and powerful - these are real people and not fictional characters. McAllester has done a good job in describing the nightmare for ordinary people trying to live through war and ethnic cleansing. His account of his own experiences is less gripping, but reasonably interesting.

What he hasn't done is give a broader perspective. This book will tell you little about the Kosovo war, it's historical background, the breakup of Yugoslavia, or the war's outcome and significance. For those who are looking for a broader history of these events, this book is entirely inadequate.

If you know anything about the region and recent events, this book will not enlighten you further. If you don't know anything about what went on in Kosovo, but would like to, "A Village Destroyed," by Fred Abrahms is a much better source. If you want to know what it's like to be a green newspaper reporter covering his first war this might be of some interest.