Blood And Honey A Balkan War Journal [Hardcover]

Chuck Sudetic (Author), David Rieff (Author), Ron Haviv (Author, Photographer), Bernard Kouchner (Afterword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 2000

Haviv’s unforgettable photographs are collected in BLOOD AND HONEY: A Balkan War Journal (TV Books; November 15, 2000). Chuck Sudetic, the leading correspondent for the New York Times in Yugoslavia for much of the conflict, provides historical, political and cultural context in a penetrating essay, shedding light on the tragic cycles of war that have engulfed the Balkans over the past century. Internationally renowned author David Rieff (Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West) offers an acute and impassioned testimonial of BLOOD AND HONEY and the importance of witness. Bernard Kouchner, founder of the Nobel Prize-winning Doctors Without Borders and the present-day governor of Kosovo, writes with vigorous morality about the importance and implication of the past on the future of the Balkans. This war journal is further augmented by a chronology of the conflict and quotations from victims, perpetrators, political figures, and international observers that provide alternative and opposing voices about the war. The book is an enduring testament to the horrors that the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and Kosovar Albanians perpetrated against each other as the result of ancient enmities and modern political manipulation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ron Haviv has courageously and with great feeling documented that appalling horror so that the rest of the world will never forget. -- Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Correspondent, CNN

Ron Haviv’s photography was crucial in defining Europe’s worst war. -- Roy Gutman, Newsday, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning “A Witness to Genocide”

About the Author

RON HAVIV—From political upheaval in Haiti to the invasion of Panama, cocaine wars in Columbia, the release of Nelson Mandela, famine in Somalia, the Gulf War, the flight of the Kurds from Iraq, conflict in Russia, and anarchy in Albania, Ron Haviv has confronted risk in order to bring attention to the social and political issues of our century. Haviv is a contract photographer for Newsweek, and his work is widely published by magazines throughout the world. His photographs have earned him several World Press awards, Picture of the Year awards, an Overseas Press Club award, and the Leica medal of Excellence. His work has been exhibited at Visa Pour L'Image, Perpignan, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Newseum, and the United Nations. He has contributed to several books, and regularly lectured at universities and seminars. Ron Haviv is represented by Corbis Saba, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: TV Books / Umbrage Editions; illustrated edition edition (November 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575001357
• ISBN-13: 978-1575001357
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,763,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Into the World of War, December 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Blood And Honey A Balkan War Journal (Hardcover)

The compelling pictures of Ron Haviv's book are a historical document of a war whose atrocities have been compared to those of World War II. Haviv takes us through a wild and vivid journey in the pages of his Balkan War Journal, revealing the kind of passion and emotion in his images that make it impossible not to see the photographer within the photograph. The essays which accompany the pictures work as an introspective supplement for making the Balkan war more poignant to the reader. These essays, along with the text chronology of the war, are key in differentiating this collection of photographs from an ordinary photobook and helping the reader understand the order of events. As such, this book serves as not merely a journal, but more importantly a historical record.

Blood and Honey is the window through which we can witness the tragic reality of the inhabitants of the former Yugoslavia. Moreover, it is a reminder to all of us that there are those that choose to go to war and there are those that have no choice. Reading Blood and Honey it is clear that Haviv is one of the brave souls that never had a choice. Definitely get this book.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coffee Table Book with a Twist, February 23, 2001

By 

Misha (Staten Island, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood And Honey A Balkan War Journal (Hardcover)

It's hard top describe or explain, but the very impact of the horrific photos and the tender essays which accompany them add substantially to the overall beauty of the work. This is definitely something to leave on the coffee table, with the expectation of rousing some stirring (possibly controversial) conversation.

Haviv's displaying a tremendous ability to see through the "fog of war" that has routinely plagued journalists (photojournalists and written word journalists) since the American Civil War. His eye for the poignant photo speaks, as a picture is supposed to, thousands of words; his words paint the pictures far more deeper than what the superficial eye can see.

This is as important a document of the Balkan War, or of war in general, as has ever been put to print. The price of the book should not be considered too daunting - the price of war, however, should be.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Haviv hanging with tough guys, March 10, 2005

By 

N. P. Stathoulopoulos "nick9155" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood And Honey A Balkan War Journal (Hardcover)

Blood and Honey presents pictures from the Balkan wars of the 1990s--Croatia to Kosovo. They are not organized in any particular manner, and the subjects range from wounded soldiers to refugees to atrocities.

The text is spare and not particularly illuminating; this volume is not a good source for real information about the wars, as it only mentions fleeting facts. The pictures depict all sides in these wars--Serb, Bosnian, Croat, Muslim, Kosovar--as victims and as fighters with portraits of refugees, paramilitaries, soldiers, and the dead and wounded. There isn't a whole lot of spin, which is good.

All told, the pictures are big, colorful, and powerful most of the way through, from the famous shots of one of Arkan's Tigers kicking a dead woman in the head, to the makeshift morgues in Kosovo during the Kosovo war of 1999. Those early shots from the beginning of the Bosnian war in April, 1992, including the Muslim man begging for his life, were barely saved--Haviv apparently hid one role when Arkan's Tigers demanded he surrender his film.

The statistics at the end are interesting, but not yet complete as some numbers have since been updated.

This is mainly just photos, and is recommended to complement any of the better books on the Balkan wars, one or all.