War In The Balkans

This authoritative reference follows the history of conflicts in the Balkan Peninsula from the 19th century through the present day. The Balkan Peninsula, which consists of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and the former Yugoslavia, resides in the southeastern part of the European continent. Its strategic location as well as its long and bloody history of conflict have helped to define the Balkans' role in global affairs. This singular reference focuses on the events, individuals, organizations, and ideas that have made this region an international player and shaped warfare there for hundreds of years. Historian and author Richard C. Hall traces the sociopolitical history of the area, starting with the early internal conflicts as the Balkan states attempted to break away from the Ottoman Empire to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that ignited World War I to the Yugoslav Wars that erupted in the 1990s and the subsequent war crimes still being investigated today. Additional coverage focuses on how these countries continue to play an important role in global affairs and international politics.

The history of the Balkans incorporates all the major historical themes of the 20th Century--the rise of nationalism, communism and fascism, state-sponsored genocide and urban warfare. Focusing on the centuries opening decades, War in the Balkans seeks to shed new light on the Balkan Wars through approaching each regional and ethnic conflict as a separate actor, before placing them in a wider context. Although top-down 'Great Powers' historiography is often used to describe the beginnings of the World War I, not enough attention has been paid to the events in the region in the years preceding the Archduke Ferdinand's assassination. The Balkan Wars saw the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the end of the Bulgarian Kingdom (then one of the most powerful military countries in the region), an unprecedented hardening of Serbian nationalism, the swallowing up of Slovenes, Croats and Slovaks in a larger Balkan entity, and thus set in place the pattern of border realignments which would become familiar for much of the twentieth century.

A contemporary history of the Balkans from the break-up of Yugoslavia to the present day, first published in 2006.

Balkan Holocausts? compares and contrasts Serbian and Croatian propaganda from 1986 to 1999, analyzing each group's contemporary interpretations of history and current events. It offers a detailed discussion of holocaust imagery and the history of victim-centered writing in nationalism theory, including the links between the comparative genocide debate, the so-called holocaust industry, and Serbian and Croatian nationalism. No studies on Yugoslavia have thus far devoted significant space to such analysis.

Armed conflict on the territory of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001 claimed over 200,000 lives, gave rise to atrocities unseen in Europe since the Second World War, and left behind a terrible legacy of physical ruin and psychological devastation. Unfolding against the background of the end of cold war bipolarity, the new Balkan wars sounded a discordant counterpoint to efforts to construct a more harmonious European order, were a major embarrassment for the international institutions deemed responsible for conflict management, and became a preoccupation for the powers concerned with restoring regional stability. After more than a decade of intermittent hostilities the conflict has been contained, but only as a result of significant external interventions and the establishment of a series of de facto international protectorates, patrolled by UN, NATO, and EU sponsored peacekeepers with open-ended mandates.

Positioned on the fault line between two competing Cold War ideological and military alliances, and entangled in ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, the Balkan region offers a particularly interesting case for the study of the global Cold War system. This book explores the origins, unfolding and impact of the Cold War on the Balkans on the one hand, and the importance of regional realities and pressures on the other. Fifteen contributors from history, international relations, and political science address a series of complex issues rarely covered in one volume, namely the Balkans and the creation of the Cold War order; Military alliances and the Balkans; uneasy relations with the Superpowers; Balkan dilemmas in the 1970s and 1980s and the ‘significant other’ – the EEC; and identity, culture and ideology. The book’s particular contribution to the scholarship of the Cold War is that it draws on extensive multi-archival research of both regional and American, ex-Soviet and Western European archives.

What can outside powers do now to help heal the terrible wounds caused by Yugoslavia's wars? Why did the victors in the Cold War and the 1991 Gulf War not act to stop the slaughter? The nature, scope, and meaning of the actions and inactions of outsiders is the subject of this book.

In The Balkan Wars 1912-1913, Richard Hall examines the origins, the enactment and the resolution of the Balkan Wars, during which the Ottoman Empire fought a Balkan coalition of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia. The Balkan Wars of 1912 - 1913 opened an era of conflict in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, which lasted until 1918, and which established a basis for problems which tormented Europe until the end of the century. Based on archival as well as published diplomatic and military sources, this book provides the first comprehensive perspective on the diplomatic and military aspects of the Balkan Wars. It demonstrates that, because of the diplomatic problems raised and the military strategies and tactics pursued to resolve those problems, The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 were the first phase of the greater and wider conflict of the First World War.