The Balkans (Universal History) - Hardcover

Mark Mazower

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297643991 ISBN 13: 9780297643999

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000

Synopsis

At the end of the twentieth century people spoke as if the Balkans had plagued Europe forever. But two hundred years earlier, the Balkans did not exist. It was not the Balkans but the ‘Rumeli’ that the Ottomans ruled, the formerly Roman lands that they had conquered from Byzantium, together with its Christian inhabitants. To westerners, too, familiar with classical regional terms such as Macedonia, Epiros and Dacia, the term ‘Balkan’ conveyed little. ‘My expectations were raised’, wrote one traveller in 1854, ‘by hearing that we were about to cross a Balkan; but I discovered ere long that this high-sounding title denotes only a ridge which divides the waters, or a mountain pass.’ In this dazzlingly original account of the region Mark Mazower dispels current Western clichés and replaces stereotypes with a vivid account of how mountains, empires and religions have shaped its inhabitants’ lives. As a bridge between Europe and Asia it has been exposed to a constant incursion of nomadic peoples across the centuries. Mountain ranges made farming hard and political control almost impossible, and allowed small communities to live side by side through to the end of the twentieth century. Empires based on religion not ethnicity shaped customs and beliefs in ways that did not entirely vanish with the coming of modernity.

Mazower’s narrative ranges broadly both in time - from the Romans to the present, including the Byzantine and Ottoman experiences - and in space, treating the former Turkish domains in Europe as part of a common if complex historical inheritance. One of our outstanding historians of modern Europe, he has written a book of extraordinary richness and concision, which provides not only a vital historical and cultural background to contemporary Balkan politics but also offers the reader a fresh view of the region’s relationship with Europe as a whole.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Throughout history, the Balkans have been a crossroads, a zone of endless military, cultural, and economic mixing and clashing between Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In this highly acclaimed short history, Mark Mazower sheds light on what has been called the tinderbox of Europe, whose troubles have ignited wider wars for hundreds of years. Focusing on events from the emergence of the nation-state onward, "The Balkans reveals with piercing clarity the historical roots of current conflicts and gives a landmark reassessment of the region's history, from the world wars and the Cold War to the collapse of communism, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the continuing search for stability in southeastern Europe.

From the Back Cover

“A gem of a book, packed with illuminating information.” —The New York Review of Books

“An invaluable resource for anyone hoping to gain an initial understanding of Balkan history.” —The New York Times

“An excellent primer on the region’s history.” —The Economist

“A highly suggestive analysis of an inexhaustible subject.” —Publishers Weekly

Edition details

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0297643991
• ISBN 13: 9780297643999
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160