History of the Balkans: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by Ferdinand Schevill

This book is a concise, well researched text about the Balkan states. In A History of the Balkans, Schevill is able to communicate to the reader the current situations and events of this region. He clarifies today's issues by presenting their historical background in a single comprehensive volume.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

562 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1992

About the author

Ferdinand Schevill (1868–1954) was an American historian.

He graduated from Yale University in 1889 and finished his PhD at Freiburg in 1892. That same year he arrived at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1892 to 1937.

Schevill’s first book, a textbook on Western European history, was Political History of Europe from 1500 to the Present Day. It was revised and reissued many times. In 1922 he publishedThe History of the Balkan Peninsula: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Schevill retired in 1924. In 1930 he reentered the University in the Humanities General Course of general education. He retired five years later to finish The History of Florence (1936).

Reviews

[Ariton Salihu · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had the privilege to read this horrible book because of my university, because for some reason they still use this outdated mess, although I could go on writing a whole review of the book I'll save you the trouble and just tell you to skip it altogether, it's an old book writing in the 1920s that's horrible enough since as historians we should be reading new up to date books and not politically motivated history books from 100 years ago

Also, this book has absolutely no footnotes to speak of, what a mess

[Gene Tosto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Complex and informative

Mr. Schevill provides an intriguing overview of a part of the world that has certainly influenced world events beyond their size and scope.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Orientalist, Islamophobic, laughably incorrect book of history that is more useful in analyzing the author's biases than accurate history. Pass.

[Nathaniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a "historian," the author was laughably nonobjective. Even for the book being written just after World War 1. He seemed to hate every civilization that wasn't Roman (or ones he perceived weren't Roman). This includes the Byzantines, Revolutionary France, and the Ottomans. There was very little about Balkan culture. The most informative parts of the book are in the first few hundred pages, as it covers the migrations of the Slavic peoples into the Balkans.

After that, the book would better be titled "The History of the Balkans under Subjugation," because it spent the majority of its time talking about the Byzantines or the Ottomans. I get that you have to talk about both of these empires to cover the Balkans, but beyond Slavic resistance to the Ottomans, there wasn't a whole lot about the Slavs. The book covered the Bulgarians and the Romanians more than any other Slavic peoples. Croatia was practically ignored, as was Bosnia. Serbia was mentioned a lot less than I would expect considering how central it was to the politics of the region.

I guess if you want a retelling of the all the Ottoman wars in the 19th and 20th centuries from someone who has a great disdain for them, then this might be your book. Otherwise, I would skip it.

[M Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since this was written in the early 1920s (as the war between the Ataturk Turks and the Greeks still was undecided), I expected a very pro-Serb slant. But this is more a political/diplomatic history of the Great Powers' attempts to control the peninsula. It is done in a very even-handed way with everyone getting criticized except the Austrians and is quite accurate as far as I can tell (and this is not my first foray into this subject).

While he does devote some space to each of the nations that have emerged, ardent Serbs, Bulgars, Greek, etc. will not be happy with their role in this book or feel that their grievances have received enough ink. For someone like me who wonders how this area became such a bottomless well of hatred, the book had some useful insights and was well-written in an ornate and outdated style.

[Mark Parker-Magyar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has some good historical facts in it, and is an interesting time capsule of historical perspectives and frames of seeing the world that are taken for granted and unchallenged, but this book is remarkably concerned with the morale character of the races that inhabit the Balkans and their fundamental characteristics. As in really, remarkably racist.

[Roxy]

Quite old-fashioned style of history and history writing- as it is a reprint of Schevill’s 1920’s-era original.