The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond

TitleThe Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond
Publication TypeBook
Year of Publication2002
AuthorsGerolymatos, André
Number of Pages297
PublisherBasic Books
CityNew York
Abstract

An examination of the Balkan region probes the history behind the hatred tearing the region apart, traveling back seven centuries to explore the roots of ethnic strife in Southeastern Europe. The book  features the wars that allowed the Ottoman Empire to ascend in the Balkans and then, 400 years later, expire. The author uses those wars to expose history's abuse of Greeks, Serbs, and Turks, as well as their abuse of history. The turning points are few and familiar -- the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, the 1453 fall of Constantinople, the 1821-30 Greek civil war, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination on June 28, 1914 amd thea war on the Balkan in the 1990s -- but his treatment of them is not. He takes the reader from the beaten path to the unfamiliar detail of battle and personalities and then to the myths they spawned. There is not much in these contorted memories that inspires national humility and mutual respect among the descendents of his protagonists.

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49323460

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