Croatia: A History [Paperback]

Ivo Goldstein (Author), Nikolina Jovanovic (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1999

When in the fourth century the Roman empire split into the Western and Eastern empires, the boundary between the two stretched from the Montenegrin coast up the river Drina to the confluence of the Sava and the Danube and then further north. This boundary has remained virtually unchanged for 1,500 years: the European, Catholic West and the Orthodox East meet on Slav territory. There were, and still are, ethnic similarities between the peoples on either side of the divide, but their culture and history differ fundamentally. The Croats and Croatia, on the western side of the divide, are traditionally linked with Hungarian, Italian, and German regions and Western Europe, and are also influenced by their long Mediterranean coastline. Ivo Goldstein's Croatia provides a necessary, accessible history of development of what is now an independent state. Croatia includes major sections on the early medieval Croatian state (until 1101), the periods of union with Hungary (1102-1526) and with Austria (1526-1918), incorporation in Yugoslavia (1918-91) and the creation of a sovereign state. Charting social, economic, and cultural developments, Goldstein shows us that this complex historical pattern explains many of the political developments of today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is modern, written in a detached professional manner, with a good deal of attention paid to economic factors and to culture (including material culture)." Chris Cviic, former editor of The World Today.

Product Details

• Paperback: 281 pages
• Publisher: Mcgill Queens Univ Pr (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0773520171
• ISBN-13: 978-0773520172
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,218,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > History > Europe > Croatia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good and Balanced Overview, April 26, 2000

By 

richard_t "richard_t" (Overseas) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Croatia: A History (Paperback)

Goldstein, a professor at the University of Zagreb, wrote this history specifically to be translated for non-Croatian readers. Therefore its brevity must be considered a virtue, as most readers would not have the patience nor the interest to wade through hundreds of pages on medieval Balkan history. However, it does not provide anything more than a series of dates and vaguely connected events until hitting its stride in the 20th century. Left largely untold are the fascinating stories of Croatia's more distant past. Tomislav, the first Croatian king who ushered in early westernizing influences merits but six vague lines, while Jelacic, the tragic nineteenth-century hero gets more attention but Goldstein fails to describe either his military campaigns or the fascinating story of his decline and death. Readers who know nothing of Croatia will find little in the first hundred pages to capture their attention, and readers with some background will find nothing new to pique their interest.

The chapters on the twentieth century are the strongest. The spare descriptions of World War II, post-war politics, and the recent wars in Croatia and Bosnia are clear and unclouded by gratuitous political partisanship. A passage (p.187) debunking the popular myth that Tito somehow 'solved' Yugoslavia's ethnic problems is particularly insightful. Goldstein is clearly a Croatian patriot, but he is no nationalist and no apologist for Tudjman's corrupt and hateful brand of politics. He criticizes Tudjman and Milosevic and the Krajina Serbs equally. The book would be stronger had the first hundred pages been reduced to a quick overview, and the subsequent chapters on the 20th century expanded and strengthened.

The book is a good one, more pointed and less partisan than Marcus Tanner's. The maps are generally good (a county chart showing Serb minority populations in 1991, and a map explaining Operation Storm are excellent), with the exception that there is no map on the Bosnian war, although there is a chapter devoted to it. The translation is generally strong, but the book is filled with typos and editorial oversights ("till" to mean "until", awkward sentences, and frequent misspellings). The strength of this history is its balance, the weakness is its lack of anecdote or interesting color.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult..., October 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Croatia: A History (Paperback)

I purchased this book based on customer reviews posted at that time. Some of the reviews were posted by Croatian scholars and they were very positive. I was under the impression that I would be provided with an unbiased history of Croatia and its conflicts. The reviews also indicated that the book would highlight only the most significant historical details.

This book may be a relatively unbiased account and I will assume that the details covered only the most significant events, however the presentation of this information was extremely difficult to follow. The book includes very few summary paragraphs to introduce broad historical movements and their impact before diving into often exceptionally detailed accounts of specific incidents. There was rarely an adequate summary or closure to a chapter. Some of the most important events were somewhat hidden and de-emphasized. No brief descriptions of significant historical figures and their impact were included. Their names were only briefly mentioned in connection to a specific event, then these figures were sometimes discussed later in the text as being important. IN addition, the order of events was not consistently chronological. More maps with greater detail would have given some of the additional guidance I had expected.

A reader more familiar with the region and some of the historical figures, the geography, etc., may have been much more satisfied with this book. I do not recommend it as an introduction to the country and its development.

32 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, a praiseworthy effort, March 27, 2000

By 

Edward Bosnar - See all my reviews

This review is from: Croatia: A History (Paperback)

Finally, an English-language history of Croatia written by a qualified, dedicated and objective historian. After reading (or, more often, skimming through) the numerous pamphlets and "overviews" of Croatian history written in English by various journalists, political scientists, pseudo-historians and assorted propagandists over the years, Goldstein's book is almost like manna from heaven. The book is a comprehensive short survey of the history of the Croats and their territory from the earliest times to the present (1999). Goldstein places the most emphasis on the twentieth century, however, since he intended this book for foreign readers, who he correctly assumed are more interested in recent history and the background to the current events so extensively covered in the news over the last decade. This is actually ironic, since Goldstein is one of Croatia's foremost authorities on medieval history and the Byzantine Empire. Indeed, his chapters on medieval and early modern Croatian history are probably the best short survey of this period in Croatia in any language. This takes nothing away from the last few chapters. Goldstein's coverage of the complex events in Croatia during World War II is also very objective and-crucially-cool-headed, which all too often is not the case in Croatian and Serbian historiography on that period. Both tend to engage in often exaggerated accusations of the atrocities committed by the other side while downplaying the war crimes of their own people. Here Goldstein very frankly speaks of the regime of terror established by the Croatian Ustasha and their genocidal mass killings of Serbs, Jews and others. He is no less balanced and critical in his approach to Yugoslavia's break-up and the ensuring wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Although concise, this section of the book is very comprehensive and does more in the way of clarifying events than most of the now countless "in-depth" books on the Yugoslav wars written over the course of the last ten years. He provides a good summary of wartime events in Croatia, listing the numerous massacres and destruction caused by the Yugoslav army and Serbian forces. But he doesn't shy away from mentioning the crimes committed by Croatian forces either. Particularly interesting in the latter context is the critical treatment of the Croatian role in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the ugly war crimes committed by Croatian troops during the Croat-Muslim conflict. There is also a very earnest discussion of the myriad consequences the war and overall political events of the 1990s (i.e. the Tudjman regime) had and continue to have for Croatian society, culture and the economy. This is not just an excellent book for foreign readers; it's also the type of popular historiography greatly needed in Croatia itself, for only such frank appraisals of past events can initiate the "exorcism" of the nationalist pathology which has so infected Croatia's public life (this also applies to Serbia, Bosnia, etc.). Perhaps my only criticism of the book would be the occasional awkwardness and unclarities in the translation, and the often careless proofreading. Otherwise, this book deserves only the highest praise.