From Booklist
Coastal and highland regions naturally divide Connecticut-sized Montenegro, and its position between Catholic Middle Europe and the Islamic Near East means it has been in the way of imperial aggrandizers from the Middle Ages to the present. Predominantly Serbian since the ninth century, Montenegrins adopted clan organization for survival. As in Scotland and Ireland, clans fostered fierce local loyalties at the expense of unity against exterior enemies. Led for centuries by members of two successive dynasties whose members fought among themselves as much as against aggressors, Montenegro actually was kept going by its Orthodox Christian faith. After World War II, Tito's Communists slaughtered thousands of educated and middle-class Montenegrins, virtually erasing Montenegrins' consciousness of their history and Serbian identity. Now the little land's best prospects seemingly lie in union with Serbia. Finding no basic history in English of the strife-torn Balkan land, the editor of Chronicles magazine pounded this one out in record time. Only more typos than in many brief books betrays any haste; there is nothing slipshod about the writing. Ray Olson
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Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
