Yugoslavia's Ruin: The Bloody Lessons of Nationalism / Edition 328

by Cvijeto Job

Overview

This remarkable book combines analysis and memoir to offer the unique perspective of an informed insider who lived through Yugoslavia's demise. Cvijeto Job witnessed his country's history as a committed partisan in WWII, a member of the Yugoslav Communist Party, and a career ambassador. His powerful and provocative story of Yugoslavia's birth, rise, and brutal destruction is told in tandem with the experiences of his family and friends as they made political choices that would change their lives forever. Intertwining his family history with the evolution of the Yugoslav Idea, Job probes knowledgeably and deeply into the causes and legacies of Yugoslavia's ruin. The result is a sober assessment of the successes and unflinching critique of the failures of Tito's Yugoslavia and how policies that were intended to ameliorate the country's ethnic tensions were corrupted or abandoned, ending in its undoing. Job argues passionately for the intervention of the international community in Yugoslavia and offers constructive and concrete suggestions for preventing future ethnic atrocities. Anyone reading this book will come to think more deeply about the ways in which the web of history and collective political culture weave the fates of nations and individuals in times of crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742517844
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/10/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.84(w) x 8.94(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Cvijeto Job fought as one of Tito's Partisans in World War II and served forty-one years as a diplomat in the Yugoslav Foreign Service. He is now a freelance writer living in the United States.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Prologue Part 3 Part I: Antecedents, their Legacies, and Burdens Chapter 4 On the Establishment, Travail, and Destruction of Royal Yugoslavia Chapter 5 In the Second World War: The Death, the Rebirth and the Curse Chapter 6 New Yugoslavia: The Worst, the Best, and the Incurable Part 7 Part II: Destabilizing Stabilizers Chapter 8 The Chain Reaction of Yugoslav Self-Determinations Chapter 9 Minorities: Socialist Yugoslavia's Special Pride and Pain Chapter 10 Minority Rights, Yes!—Minority Status, No! Part 11 Part III: Tripartite Bosnia—One or None! Chapter 12 Bosnia, Unlucky and Timeless Chapter 13 Helping Bosnia Survive: From Shame to Dayton, and Beyond Chapter 14 The Muslim Nation of Bosnia: Islamic and Non-Islamic Part 15 Part IV: Looking ahead to Overdue Tasks Chapter 16 Yugoslavs' Main Duty: Confronting Nationalist Self-Love Chapter 17 To Intervene or Not to Intervene: The Kosovo War Paradigm Chapter 18 Preventing and Repressing All Massacres—A Waiting Mission Chapter 19 Afterword Chapter 20 Coda

Editorial Reviews

This book is thought-provoking (often provocative) and contains particular insights derived from Job's personal experience. It also provides the historical context that is essential for any account of Yugoslavia, past or present. If there is bias, which could hardly be avoided, it is almost entirely a bias against evil and foolishness. This book is essential reading for those seeking to understand what happened in Yugoslavia.

International Journal

An informative account of Yugoslavia's destruction....This historical backgrounder to the present Balkan tragedy is immeasurably enriched by Job's insertion of vignettes that tie his and his family's personal history to the vacillations in Yugoslavia's fortunes over the years.

Balkan Academic News

This is a gem of an effort by a former Yugoslav Communist Party insider. Job's relentless indictment of rampant ethnonational propagandizing, especially by Serbian and Croatian leaders, is powerful and persuasive. Essential.

Choice Reviews

Job's masterful and comprehensive work will be the touchstone for any future work on the Balkans and on politics and human nature generally. This book is must-reading.

Marcus Raskin

Cvijeto Job tells this 20th-century horror tale from the unique vantage point of a former Partisan fighter, a career Communist diplomat, a caring citizen of the fragile Yugoslav state, and a probing intellectual capable of an unsparing examination of his society and himself. The result is an analysis and memoir that starts where most of the other books leave off—a rich and sobering achievement.

Stephen S. Rosenfeld

This is a gem of an effort by a former Yugoslav Communist Party insider. Job's relentless indictment of rampant ethnonational propagandizing, especially by Serbian and Croatian leaders, is powerful and persuasive. Essential.

Choice

This is a gem of an effort by a former Yugoslav Communist Party insider. Job's relentless indictment of rampant ethnonational propagandizing, especially by Serbian and Croatian leaders, is powerful and persuasive. Essential.

CHOICE

What makes the book interesting and unusual are the soul-searching reflections on what in Tito's Yugoslavia—its concepts, politics, institutions, and abuses—contributed to the sinking of the Yugoslav idea and the misery that followed.

Foreign Affairs

Cvijeto Job is that rare kind of writer who can feel from inside and write from outside. I thought I knew all about Yugoslavia until I read this passionate but disciplined treatise and learned that I knew nothing about Yugoslavia.

Daniel Schorr

[A] breath of fresh air….Job's book is impressive in its desire for objectivity, its devotion to democratic values, and its intellectual honesty….Its weighty observations regarding nearly all key factors in the contemporary history of the Yugoslav peoples and its bold, provocative assertions will surely win this book the attention of both specialists and the general public.

Review Of International Affairs

Job combines a gripping personal account with a searching analysis of what went wrong and how it could have been prevented. He makes a dramatic plea for rejection of the lure of nationalists and for the building of free societies on the basis of compromise and racial tolerance.

Warren Zimmermann