Yugoslavia's Ethnic Nightmare: The Inside Story of Europe's Unfolding Ordeal

It's hard to imagine a more complicated political situation, or a clearer, more concise, more readable rendering of it. In 10 chapters, writers from the former Yugoslavia, most of them journalists for independent news sources, give a nuanced history of the tensions between Slavs--Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Muslims--and non-Slavs like the Albanians. Unlike many books that rehearse only the divisions (caused by the Roman Empire in 395, the Turkish conquest in 1463, the Vojna Krajina, or military frontier, of 1578), these writers are determined to remember the equally strong spirit that united the Southern Slavs against foreign meddling. The ``Illyrian'' movement of the 19th century was reflected in Marshall Tito's slogan ``Brotherhood and Unity'' and still continues despite all-out propaganda efforts by the governments of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman--and the Cold War mentality of the West, which allowed such self-destructive enmity to play itself out. The massive draft resistance (150,000 men left the country to avoid the draft) and the independent media of all backgrounds represented here make it clear that ``brotherhood and unity'' are even still not entirely lost. (Apr.)