Customer Reviews

The Collapse of Yugoslavia 1991-1999 (Essential Histories)

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This book is an introduction to the Yugoslavian wars. With just about a hundred pages in length, it presents a very succint picture of events that spanned over a decade (the nineties).

(A more ellaborate study of the Yugoslavia war is "Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation" written by BBC journalists and also sold by amazon.com)

I am not familiar with these series (Essential Histories) but it appears as though this is what they are intended to be, very succint works, just a roadmap to help the reader gather further knowledge elsewhere (but don't expect to find a big Bibliography here).

So, here's what I consider the strenghts of this book:

* its fine illustrations
* its elegant presentation (printed on very nice, 'shiny' paper)
* I also liked the way they present the 'participants' of the conflict (page 19). This is an interesting approach that I don't remember to have seen elsewhere, as they cite over 14 involved parties: other than Serbian, Croatians and Bosnians, there was the 'international community', international and military organisations that directly or indirectly had a saying in the outcome of the war.

Again, this presentation of the warring sides is interesting, and reminds me also of management theories about the numerous 'publics' or 'clients' that a corporation has to deal with on a daily basis (also known as 'interested parties' that are affected in some or another way by the business of a corporation, and which explains, in part, the profession of public relations).

To summarise, I recommend this book as a quick reference guide for the Yugoslavian wars, a roadmap for the beginner. (Yet I still consider 'Death of a nation' a much better introduction to the subject).