The Fracture Zone: My Return to the Balkans – A Journey Into War, Chaos, and Violence in a Beautiful Region on the Brink

by Simon Winchester

Terrible things have been going on in the Balkans for centuries, and they are likely to go on for centuries more to come. It is an area of great contrasts -- geographically beautiful, yet the underlying crust of the region is cracked along great tectonic fault lines. These natural fault lines pale in comparison to the borders made by man, which have added further layers of complexity to a region where war is frequent, horrors are unspeakable, and history is unfathomable. It is not an area of the world that many would care to visit -- unless they had been there before. Simon Winchester, a seasoned reporter, visited the region twenty years ago. During the recent Kosovo crisis, he remembered that first trip and the people he met, and he decided that parallel journeys might well be a device for explaining with sympathy the true nature of this fractured region. Two great capitals, Vienna and Istanbul, whose ceaseless imperial rivalries in the past played so profound a role in shaping the savage divisions of the region today, would anchor his second journey to the region. With the war under way, he enlisted the aid of a linguist friend and set off from Vienna on a long, scimitar-shaped adventure through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Bulgaria, and Turkey, arriving at the Golden Horn just as the war was officially declared over. With luck, and through valuable personal contacts, Winchester managed to be in Macedonia on the day the NATO forces moved in to assume control of Kosovo -- and because the commanding general was an old friend, he rode in with the liberating columns of troops and armor. This is not a book about the war, but rather an intimate portrait of the region painted while the war was going on. It is also an attempt to understand what has led this region to violence -- now, in the past, and inevitably again in the future. Written with a keen sense of time and place,  The Fracture Zone  is at once current and timeless. It goes behind the headlines and gives us a true picture of a region that has always been on the brink. Simon Winchester's remarkable journey puts all the elements together -- the faults, the fractures, and the chaos -- and makes sense out of a seemingly senseless place.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Travel, War, Politics, Audiobook, Science

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Simon Winchester, OBE, is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster who resides in the United States. Through his career at The Guardian, Winchester covered numerous significant events including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. As an author, Simon Winchester has written or contributed to over a dozen nonfiction books and authored one novel, and his articles appear in several travel publications including Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.

In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.

After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.

Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.

Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.

Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia

Reviews

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so looking forward to reading this but ultimately it was hugely disappointing. Having read Robert D Kaplan on the Balkans and Brian Hall's excellent 'The Impossible Country', I thought this would also be an insightful journey. Instead, the first half is a very lightweight travelogue, lacking any depth whatsoever. Just as I was about to throw down the book in frustration, I came to two very interesting chapters on the Croatian coast and Montenegro which held my interest for a while longer. We then moved into Kosovo where we were treated to hugely detailed descriptions of troop movements. Part of this chapter is about the human tragedy of deeply rooted hatred and vindictive, brutal retribution and is accordingly very moving. It transpires though that the author was writing a piece for the newspapers back home at this point and so was clearly more focused on his writing. This also explains the obsession with the military.

The grammar throughout is lazy. Lots of - just to include information that could have been incorporated by using commas or a different sentence construction - dashes which often confused the meaning of the sentence. The proof reading is poor, something I really hate as I waste time filling in missing words or removing words that shouldn't be there.

I might just be pushed up to 2.5 stars because of the two or three better written chapters but no more because this pales in comparison to other works. Finally, Winchester argues that economic differences are as much to blame for the recent wars as ethnic, religious and historical hatreds. Having passed through Serbia and Croatia in 2012, I completely disagree as sadly even the younger generation continue to demonise each other.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

As my third book in a series on the Balkans, I chose this memoir of a trip made by the author at the end of the 1990's, a troubled decade for areas like Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Croatia. Winchester's journey from Vienna to Istanbul is an attempt to understand the Balkans and why the area seems so prone to ethnic hostilities. His thesis, while not original, is that the trouble goes back centuries -- and perhaps even further back than that -- to the endless tug of war between the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires that took place over this region. While one ethnic group may be in the news a lot these days as the instigators of present-day conflicts and endless horrors of war, the author points out many, many cases in the past in which the bad guys and good guys are reversed.

I really enjoyed traveling along for the journey -- and especially liked the author's attempts to demonstrate the unique characteristics of each country, both in its people and geography. Whether being chased by gun-wielding Serbs on the defensive against NATO forces or viewing the centuries' old skull of a Turkish vizier or listening to an explanation of "yogic flying" and its potential to magically erase all of the ethnic hostilities, Winchester entertains while showing the absurdity of these conflicts. He paints a picture of a beautiful land with proud people, but his prognosis is not good for an end -- at least not any time soon -- to the violence and war in this troubled place.

[Love · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great travel book and the first one I have read by Simon Winchester and it will not be the last since I absolutely loved this book. In it Winchester travels from the heart of the former Habsburg Empire Vienna to the center of the former Ottoman Empire Constantinople, or Istanbul as it has been formally called since the rule of Kemal Atatürk. This journey takes him through the Balkans where the Germanic Christian civilization of the Habsburgs met the Oriental Islamic civilization of the Ottomans. There a bloody war is being fought over the southern Serbian region of Kosovo and Winchester visits this soon to be independent country as well as the other republics that up until recently made up Yugoslavia.

This book offers a great overview of the history of the region, told through an exciting travel narrative. As the book is written in the late 1990s so many of the places Winchester visits are suffering from or have recently suffered ethnic cleansing and NATO bombings.

[Kes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a light travelogue; you're not reading this for any detailed analysis through the Balkans, just one guy going: "oh, I went through the Balkans, and this was what it was like."

I liked his description of the use of fixers in the war zone, but I feel like some fact-checking was needed - one of the footnotes mentioned that Japan and Montenegro were at a state of official war from 1905 to 1995 (even though it was not a de facto war), but I don't think it's true? Since Montenegro had not declared independence until 2006.

So that made me take the book with a grain of salt.

The writing is light, though, and is an easy read.

[Kieran · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found it a little out of date, but that's fine, it's 16 years old already. However, Winchester likes using long words. As an anti-sesquipedalian this piqued me somewhat. One of the people he met in Turkey impressed him so much, he supplied us with a list of his eclectic vocabulary. Wow, I was impressed too. Not.
This use of needlessly using long words detracted from my enjoyment of his story as I believe there is a negative correlation between overt complexity and intelligence.

Take that!

[Laura✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meandering tale that covers some history of the Balkans and the events of 1999-2000. Some interesting stories and insights into the mindset of the people and the tensions that abound in the region.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Envy had clearly played a part in the victimization—the same envy that once made Nigerian Hausas turn on the Ibo, or makes some Gentiles turn on the Jews, an envy that is familiar around the world and has been forever, and which is born of economic discord, of imagined exploitation, a blind revenge on anyone who manages life better, who makes for himself and his family something that others in the community have never managed to do.”

[Dennis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the seventh Simon Winchester book I've read, and the first time I've been disappointed.

I thought Crack in the Edge of the World (centered on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake), Krakatoa, and The Meaning of Everything (about the creating of the Oxford English Dictionary) were outstanding, and The Professor and the Madman (born from the last) almost as good.

While not quite as good, I enjoyed Outpost and The Man Who Loved China

This book is about the Balkans and the long history of conflict there, written during the late 90's conflict. There is plenty of history in here, but it seems less compelling than the others that I've preferred - that may be more a reflection on me than on the book or the region it covers, I think.

In any case, I still have plans to continue working my way through Mr. Winchester's works, and I expect I have plenty to learn before I am done.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1999, Winchester relives a journey he made 20 years earlier. This time the various recent conflicts in the Balkans have either ended in the formation of new nations or had NATO armies invading or controlling peace.

A bit dated now, it contains some good parts on the backgrounds of the various people. It contained a short analysis that concluded the violence was economically driven but the atrocities were for revenge.

In part it read as a travel book. Various interesting characters were met and Winchester has a journalistic eye for detail. Not his best book.

[Ole · Rating 2 out of 5]

This to me was a disappointment. The author has produced better and more convincing work, the appears almost like an attempt to cash in on a then popular subject, the Balkans and the mess it was. I only gave it two stars because it does come with some interesting bits and pieces...

[Bill Lively · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simon Winchester gives a good overview of the Balkans, its history and current situation. He gives an interesting description of his return to this area explaining why violence has always happened in this region and why it will probably continue for years and years into the future.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

dated, but interesting

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not often does one get a second chance to better understand an area where one had previously visited, although admittedly it happens more often for writers and journalists perhaps than for most.  As someone who came of age in the time after the fall of Communism, I must admit that it is hard for me to understand just how gullible many people seemed to be about the issue of nationalism during the Cold War.  Did people honestly believe that dictators of one stripe or another could eternally keep the lid on the problem of nations and identities that has proliferated over the last three decades (and more)?  If they did, as it seems that Simon Winchester did, they were very mistaken indeed.  If Yugoslavia seemed to be quiescent under the role of Marshall Tito, it certainly has not been so since the collapse of communism, when the rest of the world found out just how intractable its identity problems were, how vexing even the most basic questions of language and borders could be, and just how much trouble that the region would bring to the rest of the world.  It is a good thing for the author that he got a second chance of the region to develop, belatedly, some insights about it.

This particular book is organized around a Vienna-Istanbul trip the author made in 1999 or so, during the time that NATO was bombing the Serbs in order to provide for an autonomous (and later independent) Kosovo.  The author's own travel experiences, which are mildly entertaining on their own, are intermixed with discussions of geology and history that places what was then current events into a larger context and demonstrates the divides and struggles that still remain.  The author moves from Vienna, quickly through Slovenia (where he finds no reason to stay, as there is no conflict for him to deal with there), to Croatia, where he finds in Dubrovnik and other places some clues as to the historically contingent nature of the disaster of the Yugoslav breakdown and the importance of religion in forming identity.  He spends a great deal of time in Bosnia reflecting on the restive nature of Bosnian Serbs, the fragile unity of Bosniak and Croat, and the many regional divisions that make life in Bosnia particularly fraught with landmines.  He even manages to explore the struggles of Montenegro and Macedonia for legitimacy and freedom before Montenegro won its independence and Macedonia renamed itself North Macedonia to end Greek opposition to its efforts at European diplomacy before ending in Istanbul.

This is the sort of book that simultaneously invites and discourages hot takes being made about its contents.  For example, it is a pretty easy matter in a book like this to blame the Turks for a lot that is wrong here, and that is certainly part of the truth because of the issues of memory relating to the disaster of 1389 and the conversion of peoples like the Bosniaks and Albanians to Islam and the problems that have resulted from that.  Certainly others have contributed to the disaster as well, as the World War II experience of Yugoslavia encouraged Croats that they could be free and victorious over oppressive Serbs, lessons that were put to good use in the 1990's.  Montenegrin desires for freedom appear to be more subdued but never surrendered in the period after they were forced into a union with other South Slaves in a Serb-dominated kingdom, and problems of language and nomenclature make identity a vexing matter for all of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia.  And while the Slovenes appear to have done the best in avoiding the disaster of many of their former fellow citizens, there is still much that remains to be written about the divides that exist in the region to this day.

[Carol Bakker · Rating 4 out of 5]

We were standing in a kitchen after a graduation party in 2001; a Croat relative-of-a-relative was talking about fighting in The War as if it had just happened. My American mind was frantically scanning: What war is he talking about? I was mixing up the Balkans and the Falklands.

This 1999 book would have rescued me from my ignorance.

...the story of the Balkans is, in essence, the story of the ebbing and flowing of the two great empires, Hapsburg and Ottoman, that vied for sovereignty over the lands between them.

In earlier books Simon Winchester has shown the correlation between geography and history. In the Balkans, consider the mountains, isolated valleys, and canyons.

Places that have a more crazed geology, on the other hand, quite possibly tend to attract, or maybe even to produce, peoples who are of a (let us say) more robust character.

I haven't yet mustered the emotional resilience to read about the siege of Stalingrad; I'm trying to imagine a five-year siege of Sarajevo, longest siege in modern history.

** I exult in excursions. And Simon Winchester may have the best digression I've ever read. As he drives into Istanbul, he remembers a 1972 visit. The Bosphorus Bridge (the fourth longest suspension bridge span in the world) — which connects Europe and Asia — was being constructed.

An engineer I knew was in charge of the construction. I called him and he asked if I might like to walk across, along a cable that had been put up the day before. It would, he said, be a rather distinguished thing to do, rather Byronic: to be the first person to walk across the Bosphorus, from one continent to another.

Finally, I was gratified to know the three books Winchester most highly recommends to understand the Balkans are all books I'm currently reading:

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West (1943)
Balkan Ghosts by Robert Kaplan (1993)
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric (1945)

[Ray Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon Winchester is a favorite of mine. This one was hard to get started with. Typically, Winchester begins in a place I know and them takes me on a journey with him with a nice balance of exotic, fascinating and, familiar. In this one, Winchester starts in the Balkans and takes us into a conflict I have never understood. Back in the 90s, after Yugoslavia dissolved, five countries that had been one exploded in violence. At the same time, the United States engaged in the first Gulf War. I am embarrassed to admit, I was not up on my Kosovo/Montenegro/Bosnia history. After a few Google searches and a map or two, I got on board with Winchester and let him school me!

So, Winchester had visited Kosovo before the war and remembered it being beautiful. When the war began, he took a job covering what was happening. This is the record of what he saw. First published in 1999, I’m shocked I hadn’t come across this one. Nevertheless, it was brilliantly written and full of insight. Winchester’s narrative style is engaging, entertaining, and informing. Despite the homework I had to do at the start, this was a book I sincerely enjoyed.

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t love the way he writes but this was an interesting book in the end. I’ve had it sitting on my shelf for years and started reading it a couple of times but couldn’t get it to in until this time. I’m surprised as I usually like books written by journalists. Well I mean I usually find them well written. I liked this book, but found some of the writing ambiguous or convoluted.

In 2003 I did a similar, but a bit more detailed and squiggly, trip through the balkans so I enjoyed retracing my steps throughout the book. I think that was my favourite thing about it. But it did ring true and he has some interesting insights and tangent footnotes. I didn’t learn much but what I did was good stuff.

[Chris Wares · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon Winchester is one of my favourite authors and I was excited to discover that he had written about travelling in the Balkans, the current focus of my literary explorations. A rare book that barely gets a mention in his bibliography.

Written during the Kosovo War he revisits Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. It's not one of his best books. The chapters on Montenegro, particularly his description of the ancient pre-communist capital, and of Istanbul were informative and his description of General Michael Jackson helped to connect his travels to the TV news reports I once watched but it lacked the clear narrative that make his other books so exceptional.

[Konstantin Dobrev · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just turning to the Glossary is enough to show the profound ignorance of the author. How can he be trusted to provide a knowledgeable, in-depth perspective of the Balkans when he can't even get elementary facts right? Just as an example (but an important one, since it involves the very definition of the region, "Balkan" definitely does not come from the Bulgarian word for mountain.

Other ridiculous mistakes includes the claim that there were no Bulgarian settlements up to 12 miles from the Turkish border or the claim that Gypsies were gassed in Bulgaria.

And this is not even starting on his contemptuous, sneering tone, especially of those peoples he disliked (ie most of them).

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5
According to the blub: "When Kosovo reached crisis level in 1997, Winchester thought a return visit to the beleaguered area would help to make sense out of the awful violence. He decided to use Vienna and Istanbul, two great cities whose rivalries helped create the dynamics at work today, as the beginning and end points of his trip. Not specifically a book about war, it is more a portrait of a place and its people in turmoil."


I was disappointed in the lack of any real insights. It did read like a travelogue.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could read (or listen to) Simon Winchester all day long. If Simon Winchester were to write a book, for instance, on such a topic as the consistency, utility, and history of certain white paints--perhaps entitled something like The Tint that Changed the World, or The Wet Paint Zone, complete with an analysis of the level of stimulation achievable by observing the proverbial duration required for said paint to arrive from a moistened state to a dehydrated state following its application--I believe I would be enthralled.

[Felix Sun · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a bit wary about some negative reviews of the book, but after finishing the book I disagree with the negative words.

The book delivers what it supposed to do: it is not meant as a thorough historical reference of the Balkan conflicts, but a personal account of the author trip in the 70s and his return during after the Cold War era. For this, the author did a great job, taking perspectives from different sides, and even a historical perspective dated 500 years ago leading to the modern narratives.

[Roberta Westwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent way to learn history

I’ll admit I wasn’t drawn to learn about Balkan history, but having this audiobook by master storyteller Simon Winchester available to me (courtesy of Audible Plus) motivated me to give it a listen. And I’m glad I did! The countries in this region, as they were before, and how they became as they are today, was very interesting. Helps me understand what I have heard about past conflicts. As Simon has spent time travelling and reporting from the Balkans, he had real life experiences around which to tell the history. It worked great.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, I know it's fairly outdated, but the backward look is so enjoyable. I like SW's research, the telling of the story, the asides, the trivia-like details appeal to me. This is the only audiobook I have found of SW's that is read by such great quality - stead volume, tone, pronunciation, speed and no drama.

[Kristina Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fascinating journey through the Balkans in a time not so very long ago. I was struck by the similarities and the differences of the countries that once made up Yugoslavia, as well as the role Austria and Turkey have played in this region. Highly recommend for those interested in learning more about the Balkans!

[Bob Proctor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting but I had to have an atlas handy to find cities and countries talked about. Lotts of foreign words and names and it was helpful to read on kindle and listen on audible.com at the same time.

[Samuel Ronicker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular story of this insightful author’s exploration of a crazy war-torn part of our world. I’ve heard of the Balkans and I’d heard of the unrest there. But, seeing it though new eyes was enlightening.

[Јас Лично · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a pandemonium of profound bias and ignorance. Cloaked in pseudo-erudition, the book peddles stereotypes instead of insight. Its author mistakes prejudice for analysis, leaving the reader with misinformation rather than understanding.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wandering account of time spent in the Balkans. A sad, sad account of up close impressions from traveling in this tragic part of the world.

[Paschalis]

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[Lawanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Travelogue, history, politics, history in the making - an experience like no other! Audiobook performed by Steven Crossley