The Fall of Yugoslavia

Book excerpt: "Vigorous, passionate, humane, and extremely readable. . . For an account of what has actually happened. . . Glenny's book so far stands unparalleled."--The New Republic The fall of Yugoslavia tells the whole, true story of the Balkan Crisis--and the ensuing war--for those around the world who have watched the battle unfold with a mixture of horror, dread, and confusion. When Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence in June 1991, peaceful neighbors of four decades took up arms against each other once again and a savage war flared in the Balkans. The underlying causes go back to business left unfinished by both the Second and First World Wars. In this acclaimed book, now revised and updated with a new chapter on the Dayton Accords and the subsequent U.S. involvement, Misha Glenny offers a sobering eyewitness chronicle of the events that rekindled the violent conflict, a lucid and impartial analysis of the politics behind them, and incisive portraits of the main personalities involved. Above all, he shows us the human realities behind the headlines, and puts in its true, historical context one of the most ferocious civil wars of our time.