Burn This House: the making and unmaking of Yugoslavia

by Jasminka Udovički (Editor)

A collection of articles by Serbian, Croatian, Muslim, Macedonian, and American scholars, covering the history of the South Slavs and Yugoslavia from the sixth century to the present day

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War

Paperback

First published November 1, 1997

Reviews

[secretcarpet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, but I don't think it does deconstruct the 'ancient ethnic hatred' thesis like the back cover text promises. I think I saw it recommended as a good introductory text to the wars in another review and it's not that either. There is no single summary of events. The essays jump around chronologically and would benefit from more maps. Sarajevo is barely mentioned. There are also two essays purely dedicated to describing the independent newspaper and television news outlets of 1990s Serbia and Croatia.

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays focusing principally on the unmaking of Yugoslavia. I would love to read a book about how such a peculiar nationalism was constructed, but this one does an admirable job at explaining its collapse. Burn this house is very scholarly in its tone but not to a degree that makes it difficult to understand. While the respective authors have their biases, I feel the book does a great job at examining the mindsets of all actors involved. I thoroughly enjoyed Burn This House, and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning about the breakup of Yugoslavia.