Synopsis
Wh are the Serbs? Branded by some as Europe's new Nazis, they are seen by others - and by themselves - as the innocent victims of nationalist aggression and of an implacably hostile world media. In this book, Tim Judah, who covered the war years in former Yugoslavia for "The Times" and "The Economist" argues that neither version is true. Exploring the Serbian nation from the great epics of distant history to the battlefields of Bosnia and the backstreets of Kosovo, he sets the fate of the Serbs within the story of their past. The wide-ranging account opens with the windswept fortresses of medieval kings and a battle lost more than six centuries ago that still profoundly influences the Serbs. Judah describes the idea of "Sebdom" that sustained them during centuries of Ottoman rule, the days of glory during the World War I and the genocide against them during the second. He examines the tenuous ethnic balance fashioned by Tito and its unravelling after his death. And he reveals how Slobodan Milosevic, later to become president, used a version of history to drive his people to nationalist euphoria, Judah details the way Milosevic prepared for war and provides eye-witness accounts of wartime horrors: the burning villages and "ethnic cleansing", the ignominy of the siege of Sarajevo, and the columns of bedraggled Serb refugees, cynically manipulated and then abandoned once the dream of a Greater Serbia was lost. This in-depth account of life behind Serbian lines is not an apologia, but an explanation of how the people of the modernising European state could become among the most reviled of the century. Rejecting the stereotypical image of a bloodthirsty nation, Judah aims to make the Serbs comprehensible by placing them within the context of their history and their hopes.
Review
'Tim Judah's book is an ambitious and valiant attempt to bring together the real history of the Serbs and the myths and theories in which that history was handed down.' Melanie McDonagh, Evening Standard. 'A stunning new history.' Robert Fisk, Irish Times. 'A very good book... Judah cleverly interprets Serbia's sad present in the light of its past.' Sunday Times. '[Tanner and Judah] bring to bear wide knowledge of Yugoslavia and shared experience of Europe's worst war since 1945. Each gives a good historical survey and an account of the war's causes.' The Economist. 'Judah... offers a highly readable history of the Serbs from medieval times to the present, with judicious comments on the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army and Nato's bombing campaign. It is one of the best attempts to explain a situation which has baffled the West throughout history.' The Glasgow Herald. 'Readable and stimulating... Judah's book is a polemical attempt to counter the 'demonisation' of the Serbs. But it is far from being a whitewash: with very few exceptions, he successfully walks the tightrope between 'balance' and relativisation.' Brendan Simms, Times Higher Education Supplement. --Evening Standard, Irish Times, Sunday Times, The Economist, Glasgow Herald, Times Higher Education Supplement
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