Yugoslavia as History is the first book to examine the bloody demise of the former Yugoslavia in the full light of its history. This new edition of John Lampe's accessible and authoritative history devotes a full new chapter to the tragic ethnic wars that have followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia, first in Croatia and Bosnia, and most recently in Kosovo. John Lampe concentrates on the connection, real and imagined, between these conflicts and the experience of the successor states, the two Yugoslavias and their predecessors.
This is a history of Yugoslavia and is, at times painful to read - not just because of the subject matter but because the author tends to jump back in forth throughout history and provides a confusing picture of an already complicated situation. That being said, it is still full of useful data and is probably one of the more through books about the rise and (mostly) decline of the once nation of Yugoslavia.
What ended in Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1992 was the long search for a microcosm of what any Yugoslavia had to be, however the idea behind it was abused. Now, after seventy years of two Yugoslavias created by two world wars and their survivors, another war has incinerated even the identity. Perhaps the saddest of the present survivors are those for whom the ashes still glow. For they were Yugoslavs, and once, or twice, they had a country.
For anyone who is interested in the subject and wants to start from somewhere, this book is a must read. It gives you a solid base knowledge about Yugoslavia it's peoples and politics that shaped this land and it's future. I highly recommend it.