The Balkans, 1804-2012 - Misha Glenny

'A great achievement' Timothy Garton Ash Bloodshed. Invasions. Nationalist fervor. In this classic and celebrated history of the Balkans, Misha Glenny shows how the countries on the South-Eastern edge of Europe are seen by the rest of the world, and how the real story of the last 200 years is much more surprising. There are groups we think of as implacable enemies, who have, over the centuries, formed unlikely alliances, disrupting the idea that conflict in the Balkans is the inevitable product of ancient grudges. And there is the often-catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the rest of Europe, a dark history that raises profound questions about Western intervention.
From the region's turbulent nineteenth century to the recent brutal conflicts in Kosovo and Macedonia, the surge of organised crime, the rise of Turkey and the rocky road to EU membership, The Balkans remains the essential and peerless study of Europe's most complex and least understood region.
'An endeavour which deserves extraordinary admiration and as yet has no rival' Guardian 'Glenny is the wisest and most reflective of all the Western journalists who have covered this part of Europe in the past two decades... This was an enormously ambitious book to undertake, but it is the book which Europe and America need' Observer

Misha Glenny was born in 1958 and educated at Bristol University and Charles University in Prague. His coverage of the fall of communism in 1989-90 was widely acclaimed. During the Yugoslavia crisis of the early 1990s he was Central Europe correspondent for the BBC World Service. In 1993 he won a Sony Award for his coverage of Yugoslavia. Glenny speaks German, Czech, Serbo-Croat and Portuguese and has lived and worked all over the Balkans. His books include DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You and the highly praised McMafia, 'one of the essential non-fiction works of our time', which has been adapted as a major BBC 1 drama.

An endeavour which deserves extraordinary admiration and as yet has no rival
Guardian

A great achievement
Timothy Garton Ash

Misha Glenny is the wisest and most reflective of all the Western journalists who have covered this part of Europe in the past two decades... This was an enormously ambitious book to undertake, but it is the book which Europe and America need
Observer

Sweeping, fair-minded and authoritative...admirably full of uncomfortable messages for nationalist historians
Economist

His engaging passion never clouds his objective eye...Above all the book is justified by the insights which add up to a convincing picture of the problems
Sunday Times

Compelling reading...Glenny's book should be required reading for all those wishing to know what has gone wrong in the region
Irish Times

Its great strengths are evocation, fascinating detail and narrative sweep...a great achievement
The Mail on Sunday

His achievement is immense, a mix of great intellect, real humanity and intense passion. His mission is to explain, and his book will surely become an essential read for anyone who wants to understand the Balkans rather then just have an opinion about the region
The Scotsman

It is the merit of Misha Glenny's book, and its usefulness for dispelling our ignorance, that patronising distortions of the region's history are swept away
Spectator