BALKAN WITNESSBooks on the former Yugoslavia
Suggested Books on Kosovo
Howard Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo , full text (Pluto Press, 2000) For reviews, click here.
Anna Di Lellio, editor The Case for Kosova: Passage to Independence 2006
Tim Judah, Kosovo - War and Revenge (Yale University Press, 2000)
Denisa Kostovicova, Kosovo - The politics of identity and space 2005
Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (New York University Press, 1998) For a review, click here.
Julie Mertus, Kosovo - How Myths and Truths Started a War (University of California Press, 1999)
Miranda Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo (Columbia University Press, 1998)
Other Books on Yugoslavia
Peter Lippman, Surviving the Peace: The Struggle for Postwar Recovery in Bosnia-Herzegovina Surviving the Peace is a monumental feat of ground-level reporting describing two decades of postwar life in Bosnia, specifically among those fighting for refugee rights of return. Unique in its breadth and profoundly humanitarian in its focus, Surviving the Peace situates digestible explanations of the region's bewilderingly complex recent history among interviews, conversations, and tableaus from the lives of everyday Bosnians attempting to make sense of what passes for normal in a postwar society.
Essential reading for students of the former Yugoslavia and anyone interested in postwar or post-genocide studies, Surviving the Peace is an instant classic of long-form reporting, an impossible accomplishment without a lifetime of dedication to a place and people. (Vanderbilt University Press, 2019)See reviews of the book here and here.
In the blog about this book and related subjects,you'll find the following:
♦ Discussion of current events in Bosnia-Herzegovina
♦ Comments on issues that connect with themes of the bookJudith Armatta, Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic (Duke University Press, August 2010)
Judith Armatta discusses her book. Interview with Transitions Online, October 5, 2010Reviews of several books on Bosnia and Kosovo, by Paul Hockenos, In These Times, August 7, 2000
Rabia Ali and Lawrence Lifschultz, Why Bosnia - Writings on the Balkan War (Pamphleteers Press, 1993)
Mark Almond, Europe's Backyard War (Mandarin, 1994)
Christopher Bennett, Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse (NYU Press, 1996)
Edina Becirevic, Na Drini Genocide [Genocide on the Drina] 2009 Written in Bosnian, but reviewed in English
Steven Burg and Paul Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention (MESharp, 1999)
Richard Caplan, Europe and the Recognition of New States in Yugoslavia (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia
Cigar and Williams, Indictment at The Hague
Mihailo Crnobrnja, The Yugoslav Drama (McGill Queens University Press, 1994)
NEW Fabrice Dekoninck, Between Fears and Hope. France: Hermeria, 2023 Order book
Janine di Giovanni, Madness Visible: A Memoir of War (Knopf, 2003) For a review, click here
Robert Donia and John Fine, Bosnia & Herzegovina - A Tradition Betrayed (Columbia University Press, 1994)
Jasna Dragovic-Soso, Saviours of the Nation: Serbia's Intellectual Opposition and the Revival of Nationalism (Montreal: McGill-Queens Univ. Press, 2002). For a review, click here.
For related articles, see:
Robert Stallaerts, "The Disintegration of the Yugoslav Intellectual Community" (PDF) and
Audrey Budding, "Serbian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century," available for download (PDFs)Slavenka Drakulic, They Would Never Hurt a Fly (Viking, 2004)
Robert Elsie, Gathering Clouds (CreateSpace, 2015)
This book endeavors to throw some light on the historical dimension of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. It consists of a collection of texts, written from 1912 to 1944, which make it evident that ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Macedonia was a cornerstone of Serbian Government policies from the moment Serbian forces seized Kosovo and much of Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire in 1912-1913. It is to be hoped that these documents will provide insight into the historical background behind the tragic events that took place in Yugoslavia, and in particular in Kosovo, at the end of the twentieth century.Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia (Penguin revised edition, 1993)
James Gow, Triumph of the lack of will: international diplomacy and the Yugoslav War (Columbia University Press, 1977)James Gow, The Serbian Project and Its Adversaries (C. Hurst, 2003)
Roy Gutman, A Witness to Genocide (Element, 1993)
Florence Hartmann, Peace and Punishment 2007
Florence Hartmann, The Srebrenica Affair: The Blood of Realpolitik (Don Quichotte Editions, Paris, 2015)
For reviews, see:
Revealed: the role of the west in the runup to Srebrenica's fall By Ed Vulliamy, July 4, 2015
How Britain and the US decided to abandon Srebrenica to its fate By Florence Hartmann and Ed Vulliamy, July 4, 2015Marko Hoare, The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War: A History (C. Hurst, September 2012)
Carole Hodge, Britain and the Balkans, 1991 until the Present (Routledge, 2006)
Tracing the evolution of British policy from the onset of war in Croatia and Bosnia to the NATO action in Kosovo and beyond, this work examines the underlying factors governing that policy and its role in shaping the international 'consensus'. British policy is examined through parliamentary proceedings in the House of Commons and Lords, as well as through evidence offered at select committees, reports from political and humanitarian agencies, private interviews with protagonists and media coverage, in relation to the situation on the ground and to policy development on the part of other leading world powers and institutions. Now in paperback (2010)Jan Willem Honig and Norbert Both, Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime
Tim Judah, THE SERBS
Peter Maass, LOVE THY NEIGHBOR
Branka Magas, The Destruction of Yugoslavia (Verso, 1993)
Magas and Zanic, The WAR IN CROATIA AND BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 1991-1995
Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History (New York University Press, 1994)
Nicolas Moll, Solidarity is More Than a Slogan Explores the activities of International Workers Aid, a trade-union-connected organization that delivered humanitarian aid to Bosnia and helped refugees inside and outside the country during and after the 1992-1995 war. (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiften, 2021) Full text is downloadable free.
Elizabeth Neuffer, The Key To My Neighbor's House
Hasan Nuhanovic, Under the UN Flag How the Dutch state and the United Nations abandoned the people of Srebrenica to genocide in July 1995.
Samantha Power's chapters on the Balkans, in AMERICA IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE
Sabrina P. Ramet and Vjeran Pavlakovic, editors, Serbia Since 1989 - Politics and Society under Milosevic and After (University of Washington Press, 2005)
David Rieff, SLAUGHTERHOUSE
David Rohde, Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica
Catherine Samary, Yugoslavia Dismembered (Monthly Review Press, 1995)
Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Duke University Press, 2002)
Michael Sells, THE BRIDGE BETRAYED
Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (Penguin, 1995)
Laura Silber, The Death of Yugoslavia TV Books, 2003
Search YouTube for video version (multiple segments, not necessarily in this order):
Enter Nationalism
Road to War
Wars of Independence
A Safe Area
Gates of Hell
Pax AmericanaSebina Sivac-Bryant, Re-making Kozarac: Agency, Reconciliation, and Contested Return in Post-War Bosnia (Palgrave MacMillan, 2016) Review by Peter Lippman
Chuck Sudetic, Blood and Vengeance One family's story of the war in Bosnia, 1998. Full text available online
Interview with the author C-SPAN, August 1998Emir Suljagic, Postcards from the Grave
Robert Thomas, Serbia under Milosevic: Politics in the 1990s How Milosevic won and exercised power. (Hurst & Company, 1999) For a review, click here.
Mark Thompson, A Paper House - The Ending of Yugoslavia (Vintage, 1992)
Gerard Toal and Carl T. Dahlman, Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and Its Reversal Oxford University Press, 2011. 488 pages
Bato Tomasevic Life and Death in the Balkans A family saga in a century of conflict. Published by Hurst and Company, 2008
Nevenka Tromp, Prosecuting Slobodan Milosevic The unfinished trial (Routledge, 2016)
Jasminka Udovicki and James Ridgeway, Yugoslavia's Ethnic Nightmare (Lawrence Hill Books, 1995)
Ed Vulliamy, Seasons in Hell (Simon & Schuster, 1994)
Ed Vulliamy, The War is Dead, Long Live the War: Bosnia, the Reckoning, 2012
Lawrence Weschler, Vermeer in Bosnia (Pantheon Books, 2004)
Isabelle Wesselingh and Arnaud Vaulerin, Raw Memory: Prijedor, Laboratory of Ethnic Cleansing (Saqi, 2005)