19th & 20th Century Balkan History

Misha Glenny. The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999. New York: Viking Penguin, 2000. 726 pages.

Award-winning BBC journalist Misha Glenny's history of the Balkans in the 19th and 20th Centuries focuses on the political conflicts and violence of the region. He depicts the collapse of the great empires of the region and the growth of nation-states and strong nationalist rivalry. His main argument, however, is that the region's contemporary strife and problems are the result of 200 years of interference from the imperialistic great powers rather than from nationalist violence and ethnic hatred in the Balkans. He claims that the fate of the Balkans was due to the great powers blundering in their approach to the Balkans, whose "political orientation was decided in the distant capitals of great powers" (p. 520). For example, Glenny points out that given "the geographical diversity and complex demography of the Balkans, any division of the region into new states that neglected to take into account local antagonisms was bound to fail" (p. 133). Yet this was exactly what happened at the Congress of Berlin ending the Se

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Category: History - 1