20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very accurate but with small inaccuracies and nuances, September 22, 2004
This review is from: Bosnia: A Short History (Paperback)
Malcolm does a pretty good job in covering almost 1000 years of Slav history in Bosnia. Most of his book looks at Bosnia during the Ottoman Empire and the reign of the Kotromanic dynasty. His narrative for the most part is very clear-sighted and does not allow anger or bitterness to take over, unlike many other historians who have written books on the Balkans (Philip Cohen springs to mind)
Saying that, however, there are certain subjects that he just doesn't cover in enough detail, particularly since they were very important parts of Bosnia's history. For example, he mentions the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia during WW2 in passing, reserving only one sentence on this subject, and completely fails to mention that thousands upon thousands of Serbs, Jews and others perished there.
His last chapter about the most recent Bosnian war I found to be too short and simplistic. He blames forces in Serbia for most of the mayhem wrought upon Bosnia, which is fair enough, but does not even hint at the fact that Bosniacs and Croats also committed war crimes. While the Serbs were busy expelling and killing Bosniacs from their area of control, the Croats were also doing the same in Herzegovina and central Bosnia, culminating into a civil war between the Bosniacs and the Croats during 1992-1994. This side of Bosnia's tragedy is sadly neglected.
Ok, as the title describes, it is a SHORT history at the end of the day but it just seems to me as if he managed to cover the earlier parts of Bosnia's history very well but seems to slightly taper of at the end of the book. All in all, a good book which is certainly one of the more balanced books out there on Bosnia.
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18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Primer on Bosnian History, May 20, 2000
This review is from: Bosnia: A Short History (Paperback)
Bosnia: A Short History is the historical primer for Bosnia. Yes, it does paint the Serbs in a negative light. And yes, there are much better book on the Bosnian War available: The Fall of Yugoslavia for example. Due to publication dates, the effects of the last five years of peacekeeping are not touched upon: for that Faking Democracy after Dayton is the best reference. However, this book give the single best history until the post World War II era. If you are about to deploy to the Balkans, reading of this book will give you a good historical background of the events leading up to 1989.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good history, marred by modern sympathy, January 10, 2009
This review is from: Bosnia: A Short History (Paperback)
Malcolm delivers a strong, if brief, history of medieval Bosnia. He presents a cogent explanation of who the Serbs, Croats and (others? Bosniaks? Muslims?) are, and where they came from. And then he delivers a stilted modern history, twisted by his (somewhat understandable, Western) sympathy for Izetbegovic.
One thing a history should do is go beyond an encyclopedia entry. This book succeeds. Rather than just list kings, conflicts, edicts... Malcolm digs into disputed questions of history, and takes a side, based on evidence. There is a Bosnian history, distinct from Serbia or from Croatia. There was a Bosnian church, but it was not Bogomilist. There was, briefly, an independent Bosnia.
The book is thorough during the Ottoman period. There was no mass conversion to Islam. There were rivalries and conflicts among local, Bosnian Ottomans of different ranks, and between locals and the Porte. Malcolm looks at politics, at economics, and at military issues as they wrap together. The status of peasants varied, based not only on religion but also on what sort of farm/estate they were on.
Malcolm goes beyond Bosnia's borders. To explain internal politics in the empire (temporary posts, the end of the Janissaries, the devrisme) he brings us to Salonika or Istanbul. Relations with Austria, ongoing warfare, refugees from Ottoman defeats in Hungary, cross border raids... all are treated in some detail.
The best of this book, in a way, comes when it reaches the late 19th and early 20th century. Bosnian Slavs were Muslim, Orthodox, or Catholic. We've already learned about how and where many of these Slavs came from (in many cases, other groups assimilated, as, for example, the Vlachs on the military border with Austria slavicized, and retained their Orthodoxy). But in the context of growing Balkan nationalism, Orthodox Bosnian Slavs came to identify as Serbs, and Catholic Bosnian Slavs as Croats. And Muslim Bosnian Slavs? The question mark is Malcolm's, not mine, and helps set the stage for the 20th century.
But the worst of the book is what comes after. Malcolm is (from a western standpoint, understandably) sympathetic to the Muslim position in the war after the break-up of Yugoslavia. Malcolm also is hostile to communism. The combination colors his history from post-WWI onward. The history of WWII is stilted, soft-peddles the role of the Ustashe, is hostilely revisionist towards the Partisans, and goes to odd lengths to equate them with the Chetniks. The post-war chapter seeks to downplay the positive developments in Yugoslavia, and digresses in order to excuse, in advance, Izetbegovic's position in the 90's.
Don't read the book for its post-WWI coverage. But do read it for its compelling, surprisingly detailed history of Bosnia up to that point.
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