Endgame in the Balkans: Regime Change, European Style - Hardcover

Elizabeth Pond

2.8

10 ratings by Goodreads

9780815771609: Endgame in the Balkans: Regime Change, European Style

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815771606 ISBN 13: 9780815771609

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 2006

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Can Europe tame the Balkans? That's the question veteran journalist Elizabeth Pond addresses in this timely and absorbing book. Starting with the wars of the Yugoslav succession, Endgame in the Balkans guides readers through the region's tumultuous recent history and explores both how the lure of European Union (EU) membership has affected the Balkans and how Balkan developments have shaped the EU.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews, as well as decades of experience as a foreign correspondent, Pond moves deftly across the region, from Bulgaria to Romania, Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia and Montenegro. She examines the many hurdles standing between these countries and EU membership —including poverty, corruption, and rabid chauvinism —as well as the hopes and problems that have led Balkan leaders to look to the West. In the process, she paints a vivid picture of the challenges facing the region as it seeks to vault from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.

Already in its brief history, the European Union has forged a historic reconciliation between France and Germany and helped consolidate democracy in Portugal, Spain, and Greece. But in southeastern Europe, it faces one of its most difficult tasks yet. En dgame in the Balkans r eveals the full extent of this challenge, as well as the grounds for hope. Rich in detail and penetrating analysis, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the future both of the region and of Europe as a whole.

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Review:

"Elizabeth Pond, in her survey of the Balkans and EU integration, considers not only the former Yugoslavia but also its neighborhood in her excellent survey of the state of scholarship on the entire region since the fall of communism. She has carefully sifted through the best political analyses available and pulled them together country by country." --Nicholas Whyte, "Internationale Politik", 4/1/2007

"She is extraordinarily knowledgeable, and after a while the sheer volume of her information begins to cast a hypnotic spell." --Barry Gewen, "New York Times Book Review", 12/17/2006

"As in her previous books, Elizabeth Pond comes across as an analyst with a sharp intellect and a lucid judgement, but also as a seasoned journalist who takes us on a journey to relive both the tragedies and the successes of Balkan politics." -- "International Affairs", 3/1/2007

"Offers a well-informed comparative analysis of those parts of the Balkans that enjoyed an uneasy peace and therefore got the change to find a place on the European integration train and the victims of warfare whose place in the new Europe is still hard to determine.... Elizabeth Pond is to be congratulated for providing a vivid and detailed portrait of the region's politics and role in international relations which is sure to be widely used by international officials needing an accessible compendium to make some sense of the Balkans." --Tom Gallagher, University of Bradford, "SEER"

"Pond, as a highly experienced journalist with good judgment and an incorruptible eye for the truth, does not draw this upbeat conclusion lightly; she painstakingly details the waste, corruption and persistence of organized crime across the region, and for each optimistic interpretation of events, she also produces a dark mirror image." -- "Survival"

About the Author:

Elizabeth Pond is a journalist based in Germany. Currently a correspondent for the Washington Quarterly, she was a longtime European correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. She is the author, most recently, of Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance (Brookings, 2003) and The Rebirth of Europe (Brookings, revised 2002).

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