Read complete books and articles on: Balkan History

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Balkan History

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Changing Shape of the Balkans » Read Now
by F. W. Carter, H. T. Norris. 180 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
2.

Imagining the Balkans » Read Now
by Maria Todorova. 258 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

"If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented" was the verdict of Count Hermann Keyserling in his famous 1928 publication, Europe. This book traces the relationship between the reality and the invention. Based on a rich selection of travelogues, diplomatic accounts, academic surveys...
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"If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented" was the verdict of Count Hermann Keyserling in his famous 1928 publication, Europe. This book traces the relationship between the reality and the invention. Based on a rich selection of travelogues, diplomatic accounts, academic surveys, journalism, and belles-lettres in many languages, Imagining the Balkans explores the ontology of the Balkans from the eighteenth century to the present day, uncovering the ways in which an insidious intellectual tradition was constructed, became mythologized, and is still being transmitted as discourse. The author, who was raised in the Balkans, is in a unique position to bring both scholarship and sympathy to her subject. A region geographically inextricable from Europe, yet culturally constructed as "the other," the Balkans have often served as a repository of negative characteristics upon which a positive and self-congratulatory image of the "European" has been built. With this work, Todorova offers a timely, accessible study of how an innocent geographic appellation was transformed into one of the most powerful and widespread pejorative designations in modern history.
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3.

The Balkans, Frontier of Two Worlds » Read Now
by William B. King, Frank O'Brien. 278 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
4.

Balkan Economic History, 1550-1950: From Imperial Borderlands to Developing Nations » Read Now
by John R. Lampe, Marvin R. Jackson. 734 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
5.

Experimenting with Democracy: Regime Change in the Balkans » Read Now
by Tom Gallagher, Geoffrey Pridham. 286 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The chronic instability in the Balkan States of South East Europe has prevented the end of the Cold War becoming an era of genuine peace in Europe. Against a background of competing nationalisms, economic decline, the resilience of authoritarianism, it is easy to forget that there have been...
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The chronic instability in the Balkan States of South East Europe has prevented the end of the Cold War becoming an era of genuine peace in Europe. Against a background of competing nationalisms, economic decline, the resilience of authoritarianism, it is easy to forget that there have been experiments with democracy have taken place since 1990 with relative success. Now, for the first time, the region is genuinely engaging with open politics; its outcome will determine whether the Balkans can cease being a byword for instability, and an area whose shock-waves have disturbed the peace of Europe on many occasions. Democratisation in the Balkans explores the obstacles impeding the consolidation of democracy, and even preventing a state like Serbia from going very far down the democratic road. Social scientists with expert knowledge of each of the Balkan states, and their political and economic systems, examine why progress in building free institutions has been slow compared to that of Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula and Latin America.
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6.

Geopolitical and Economic Changes in the Balkan Countries » Read Now
by Nicholas V. Gianaris. 230 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...background work on the history, wars, and invasions of the Balkans and how this background has affected the present unsettled situation.
7.

Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian Victim-Centred Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia » Read Now
by David Bruce MacDonald. 308 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
8.

The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century and beyond » Read Now
by Andre Gerolymatos. 297 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

When it comes to the Balkans, most people quickly become lost in the quagmire of struggle and intractable hatred that consumes that ancient land today. Many assume that the genesis of the past ten years of atrocity in the region might have had something to do with Tito and his repressive Yugoslav...
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When it comes to the Balkans, most people quickly become lost in the quagmire of struggle and intractable hatred that consumes that ancient land today. Many assume that the genesis of the past ten years of atrocity in the region might have had something to do with Tito and his repressive Yugoslav regime, or perhaps with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914. The seeds were really planted much, much earlier, on a desolate plain in Kosovo in 1389, when the Serbian Prince Lazar and his army clashed with and were defeated by the Ottoman forces of Sultan Murad I.
In this riveting new history of the Balkan peoples, Andre Gerolymatos explores how ancient events engendered cultural myths that evolved over time, gaining psychic strength in the collective consciousnesses of Orthodox Christians and Muslims alike. In colorful detail, we meet the key figures that instigated and perpetuated these myths -- including the assassin/heroes Milos Obolic and Gavrilo Princip and the warlord Ali Pasha. Thislively survey of centuries of strife finally puts the modern conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo into historical context, and provides a long overdue account of the origins of ethnic hatred and warmongering in this turbulent land.
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9.

Diverse Paths to Modernity in Southeastern Europe: Essays in National Development » Read Now
by Gerasimos Augustinos. 180 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This collection of essays provides a historical perspective on the problems and prospects of development in the major Balkan states of Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, and Bulgaria. Providing an integrated overview of the region, the work identifies differences in developmental strategies that have...
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This collection of essays provides a historical perspective on the problems and prospects of development in the major Balkan states of Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, and Bulgaria. Providing an integrated overview of the region, the work identifies differences in developmental strategies that have arisen in particular states in the past century, and offers a framework for comparing developmental variations. It is the first study to examine development over the entire 20th century and to consider states with markedly different social and political systems.
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10.

Outcast Europe: The Balkans, 1789-1989, from the Ottomans to Miloeseviac » Read Now
by Tom Gallagher. 314 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Examining two centuries of Balkan politics, from the emergence of nationalism to the retreat of Communist power in 1989, this is the first book to systematically argue that many of the region's problems are external in origin. A decade of instability in the Balkan states of southeast Europe has...
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Examining two centuries of Balkan politics, from the emergence of nationalism to the retreat of Communist power in 1989, this is the first book to systematically argue that many of the region's problems are external in origin. A decade of instability in the Balkan states of southeast Europe has given the region one of the worst images in world politics. The Balkans has become synonymous with chaos and extremism. Balkanization, meaning conflict arising from the fragmentation of political power, is a condition feared across the globe. This new text assesses the key issues of Balkan politics, showing how the development of exclusive nationalism has prevented the region's human and material resources from being harnessed in a constructive way. It argues that the proximity of the Balkans to the great powers is the main reason for instability and decline. Britain, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France and finally the USA had conflicting ambitions and interests in the region. Russia had imperial designs before and after the 1917 Revolution. The Western powers sometimes tolerated these or encouraged undemocratic local forces to exercise control in order to block further Soviet expansion. Leading authority Tom Gallagher examines the origins of these Western prejudices towards the Balkans, tracing the damaging effects of policies based on Western lethargy and cynicism, and reassesses the negative image of the region, its citizens, their leadership skills and their potential to overcome crucial problems.
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11.

Balkan Background » Read Now
by Bernard Newman. 354 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...1878, an important year in Balkan history. The Russians, having beaten...inescapable fact is that the Balkans, doomed by history to house peasant peoples...his death the...
12.

The Nazis in the Balkans: A Case Study of Totalitarian Politics » Read Now
by Dietrich Orlow. 242 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...SOEG's Organizational History and Structure...New Order in the Balkans 94...welcomed in the Balkans. The advent of...a new phase of history in Southeastern...policies in...
13.

The Rise of Nationalism in the Balkans, 1800-1930 (1931) » Read Now
by Wesley M. Gewehr. 142 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...NATIONALISM IN THE BALKANS, 1800-1930 BY...GEWEHR PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AMERICAN UNIVERSITY...influenced the course of history in the Balkan peninsula. Unlike...Athos, wrote...
14.

The History of the Balkan Peninsula: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1922) » Read Now
by Ferdinand Schevill. 560 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...I. THE EPOCHS OF BALKAN HISTORY 1 II. THE GEOGRAPHY...THE GREEK AND ROMAN EPOCHS OF BALKAN HISTORY 26 BIBLIOGRAPHY...CHAPTER I THE EPOCHS OF BALKAN HISTORY THIS book is...
15.

International Intervention in the Balkans since 1995 » Read Now
by Peter Siani-Davies. 224 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This volume offers an analysis of the activities of the international community in the Balkans since the 1995 Dayton Agreement. There has been substantial investment in the region but so far the gains have been limited and doubts remain as to the extent that sustainable security has been enhanced...
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This volume offers an analysis of the activities of the international community in the Balkans since the 1995 Dayton Agreement. There has been substantial investment in the region but so far the gains have been limited and doubts remain as to the extent that sustainable security has been enhanced. There is a need for serious reassessment of policies and priorities, but this depends on a careful analysis of past successes and failures. The contributors seek to provide this by examining intervention, not just in terms of military action and the activities of major international agencies at state level, but also the activities of outside NGOs within the local environment.
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16.

Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe » Read Now
by Traian Stoianovich. 433 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library