Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia [Paperback]

Richard West (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 21, 1996

A revealing biography of Tito, the Yugoslav leader who was a partisan against the Germans and the first Communist head to break with the Soviet Union, considers his role in the breakup of Yugoslavia after his death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This impressive biography of Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) sheds welcome light on the current bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia. West describes Tito's rise to power, his creation of the Partisan Army during the Axis occupation, his consolidation of southern Slavs after the war and establishment of a Communist Yugoslavia, the break with Stalin in 1948, Tito's subsequent rivalry with the Soviet bloc and his leadership of nonaligned states. In freelance journalist West's view, Tito's great achievement in foreign affairs was the rapprochement with western Europe. The book also clarifies the present three-way conflict among Serbs, Croats and Muslims. West argues persuasively that to understand the region's cycle of hatred and violence, one must take an in-depth look at its religious history, especially the schisms among the Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church and Islam in the Middle Ages. In contrast to Western media assumptions, there is scant difference, according to West, between warring factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, all of whom are alike in appearance, language and bellicosity: what divides them is not class or race but religious intolerance. Illustrations.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Richard West (b. 1930) is a British journalist and author most noted for his reporting of the Vietnam War, and Yugoslavia, for which he has had a lifelong passion. He began his career at the Manchester Guardian, subsequently becoming a foreign correspondent in Yugoslavia, Africa, Central America and Indochina. Among his books are Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia, The Making of the Prime Minister and An English Journey. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 436 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (May 21, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786703326
• ISBN-13: 978-0786703326
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,432,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Rather pointless, May 23, 2001

By 

Edward Bosnar - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia (Paperback)

This book fails both as a history or analysis of Yugoslav politics or as a critical biography of Tito. The first few chapters, which contain an overly compressed "historical" review of the South Slavs from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, contain factual, spelling and interpretative errors so obtrusive and atrocious that they are almost laughable. For example, West claims that the leader of the 1573 Croat peasant revolt was "Donja Stubica" - that was actually the name of the village in which it started. He claims that in 1871 the Croat revolutionary Eugen Kvaternik led an "armed assault on the Serbs," when in fact Kvaternik launched a foolishly bold uprising against the Habsburg Monarchy while many of his fellow rebels were themselves Serbs. He persistently misspells the surname of the great Serbian linguist and writer Vuk Karadzic as `Karadjic' - and there are literally dozens of similar mistakes that riddle the entire text. West basically argues that the problems in Yugoslavia are directly tied to historical events and religious schisms that occurred during the Middle Ages, and reduces the wars which ensued after Yugoslavia's collapse to religious conflicts. He also insists that there are no national nor even ethnic differences between the Serbs, Croats or Bosnian Muslims; rather, he says they are all the same ethnic group with three different religions, thus demonstrating his glaring ignorance of the differences between `nation' and `ethnicity,' among other things. He focuses extensive attention and invective, perhaps rightfully, to the WW2 Croatian Ustasha regime and the often scurrilous role of the Croatian Catholic Church during this period. On the other hand, he downplays or denies the much less extensive but often quite brutal crimes of the Serbian Chetniks during the same period - even to the point of making the ludicrous claim that the Serbian Orthodox Church was "never clearly associated with Great Serb nationalism or with the Chetniks." One of the main flaws of this book is that its primary focus is on World War II - the implication being that this period crucially influenced events in the 1990s. This is only true to a certain extent, but oversimplifies and greatly downplays the even more vital 40+ ensuing years. In fact, at times this book rather eerily resembles texts often seen in Croatian and Serbian newspapers during the late 1980s and early 1990s which speak of events from 50, 150 or even 500 years ago as though they happened yesterday. West's ignorance and lack of objectivity also leads him to (rather outrageously) twice refer to the Kosovo Albanians as `Shiptars' - among non-Albanians, this is a racial epithet, not a neutral descriptive term. Tito, the central figure in this book, fares little better. Although West has a nostalgically favorable view of Tito, he offers no new insights into Yugoslavia's long-time president and strongman, only the reworded observations and conclusions from other biographies, memoirs and histories, both favorable and critical. Often he provides details on completely trivial matters from Tito's life, at one point even citing actor Richard Burton's impressions of Tito and his wife. Aside from a few mildly engaging anecdotes taken from his own travels in Yugoslavia, there is little of interest here. Reading West's book is a colossal waste of time; my recommendation is for readers to check it out of a library, peruse the photographs and then go straight to the bibliography to find more worthwhile books to read on Tito, WW2 and the Ustasha terror and the former Yugoslavia in general.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Before comdemning the Serbs, the UN should read this!, July 11, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia (Paperback)

A good read! This book is well-researched and contains information that everyone and their brother and sister should read. This man knows Yugoslavia, knows the history of the country, and demonstrates that the world had done nothing toward solving the "nationalities" problem after the fall of Nazi Germany, when a reconciliation was possible. The author demonstrates how the world stood by and allowed the Ustasha to highjack planes, to blow them up in mid-air, to run rampant with their terrorist ideals while the Communists were in power, even going so far as to give them the places to train their terrorist soldiers. While the author condemns Tito for not confronting the problem in Yugoslavia and dealing with it while he was in power, the author also condemns the rest of the world for their complicity to the crime.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top notch analysis of 20th century Yugoslavia, January 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia (Paperback)

This is really a book about Yugoslavia, skillfully interwoven with a history of the major character during the 20th century; Tito.

Very readable, a real page-turner considering it's a history book. Also very informative about the underlying tensions of the Yugoslav region. If you're interested in some background on the current crisis in Bosnia etc. this is a great book to read.