Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History - Softcover

Robert D. Kaplan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0333632834 ISBN 13: 9780333632833

Publisher: Vintage Books / Random House, 1994

Synopsis

A history of the Balkan Peninsula explores the region's political, social, religious, and economic past in order to understand the nature of the recently rekindled centuries-old blood feuds

About this title

Review:

From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare now sweeping Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy.

This enthralling and often chilling political travelogue fully deciphers the Balkans' ancient passions and intractable hatreds for outsiders. For as Kaplan travels among the vibrantly-adorned churches and soul-destroying slums of the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, he allows us to see the region's history as a time warp in which Slobodan Milosevic becomes the reincarnation of a fourteenth-century Serbian martyr; Nicolae Ceaucescu is called "Drac," or "the Devil"; and the one-time Soviet Union turns out to be a continuation of the Ottoman Empire.

From the Publisher:

"Powerfully argued...the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date."--The Boston Globe

"A road-map through the centuries-old ethnic hatreds and anti-Semitism that continue to erupt in Eastern Europe."--Abraham H. Foxman

"With remarkable clarity...Mr. Kaplan succeeds in presenting the everyday experience of different Balkan communities in a vivid and significant way. Balkan Ghosts offers the complexity, brutality, and beauty in traveling in both the past and present."--Seattle Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books / Random House
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0333632834
• ISBN 13: 9780333632833
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336