Broken Bonds

by Lenard J. Cohen

Struggling against high odds, Yugoslavia managed to survive from its 1918 inception until the early '90s. But now, tragic ethnic & regional conflicts have irrevocably fragmented the country. Lenard Cohen explores the original conception & motives underlying the Yugoslav idea, looking at the state's major problems, achievements & failures during its short troubled history. He answers a broad range of questions concerning contemporary Yugoslavia: How did the state plunge from its position as a positive model to an essentially negative case of socialist reform? What measures for recovery were proposed by the country's ethnically & regionally segmented one-party elite? What were the reasons for the eventual abandonment of reform socialism, the elimination of the single party's monopoly & the rapid delegitimation of the country's federal political institutions? What programs have been offered by the noncommunist & born again communist leaders elected to power during the revival of multiparty pluralism in '90? How did their efforts to achieve regional & ethnic sovereignty place the country in such a precarious & ultimately fatal position? Concluding chapters offer an analysis of the causes & horrifying consequences of the military conflict & civil war from 1991 to 1994, including a discussion of the impotent efforts at peacekeeping, the dynamics of the complex & savage struggle in Bosnia-Hercegovina, & an examination of the problems faced by Yugoslavia's successor states.

444 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Bill Clinton finally responded to the war in Bosnia, many political refugees moved to our Rogers Park, Chicago neighborhood, always a transitional one. The owners of one of the cafes I frequented were Bosnian as were many of the new customers appearing there and at other cafes in the area. Also, the mother of my niece was of mixed Serbian and Bosnian parentage, albeit Orthodox. In order to understand where they all were coming from and to get some background on what I'd been seeing in the press for years, I started a study of the matter by reading West's 'White Lamb, Black Falcon'. That being almost too deep a background--it ends in the thirties--I proceeded to more contemporary studies such as this by Cohen. Although dry, It gave me what I was looking for.

[Calle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting!

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book because it was well organized and a fairly straight forward read. He did show how Milosevic not only ruined Serbia, but he also benefited immensly as did Tudjman. There was also the idea of how Tito created a moral vacuum that was later filled with Serbian national sentiment. There was also the idea that Serbia being under the Ottomans made them more prone to eastern mentalities rather than western that Croatia and Slovenia had under Austrian Hungarian Empire.