Imagining the Balkans - Maria N Todorova

Starting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and continuing up to the present, Imagining the Balkans covers the Balkan's most formative years. From the down fall of the Ottoman Empire, through the turbulent nationalist years of the nineteenth century, up to World War I, the idea of the Balkans was fiercely, often violently, contested. In the wake of WWI, the beginnings of a tradition, largely enforced by academics, emerged stigmatizing the Balkans. Since then, theregion has suffered from the neglect, abuse, and scant regard of both western Europe and the world. The result has been in many direct ways to compound the Balkan's poverty, internal violence, and lack of national self-image.A startling history of ideas, Imagining the Balkans provides a much needed exploration into a region too long neglected.