Bosnia: A Short History

"This book is essential for anyone to understand the present conflict . . .a splendid work of synthesis on a very complex subject, written with insight and sympathy: the best, indeed the only informed book on a history that has become both topical and tragic."
—Sunday Telegraph

"By far the best available guide to the fatal steps to catastrophe . . . . Thoughtful, lucid, and deeply informed."
—New York Review of Books

"An extraordinary book—the best available in English on the background of the Bosnian war."
—Warren Zimmermann
former U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, in the National Interest

"Quite simply one of the best books of historical scholarship written for a general audience in the last decade."
—New York Newsday

"An acute, readable introduction to why and how racial history has been the bane of the Balkans and why it need not be."
—Village Voice Literary Supplement

"A positive gem, the product of profound scholarship, deep reflection, and a decency of sentiment. . . There are few works of scholarship that I have read in recent decades that have impressed me as much as Noel Malcolm's."
—National Review

"A masterpiece. Few histories have made history. This one could yet do so."
—Times of London

"A marvelous book, a work of great scholarship."
—Margaret Thatcher

"A most impressive achievement . . .A firm and skillful guide to the general reader."
—Times Literary Supplement

"Will be read as the definitive work for decades to come."
—Spectator

This updated edition of Noel Malcolm's highly-acclaimed Bosnia: A Short History provides the reader with the most comprehensive narrative history of Bosnia in the English language. Malcolm examines the different religious and ethnic inhabitants of Bosnia, a land of vast cultural upheaval where the empires of Rome, Charlemagne, the Ottomans, and the Austro-Hungarians overlapped. Clarifying the various myths that have clouded the modern understanding of Bosnia's past, Malcolm brings to light the true causes of the country's destruction. This expanded edition of Bosnia includes a new epilogue by the author examining the failed Vance-Owen peace plan, the tenuous resolution of the Dayton Accords, and the efforts of the United Nations to keep the uneasy peace.

What went wrong in the country where Christians and Muslims mingled and tolerated each other for over five centuries? It was a land with a vibrant political and cultural history, unlike any other in Europe, where great powers and religions-the empires of Rome, Charlemagne, the Ottomans; the faiths of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam overlapped and combined. In this first English-language history of Bosnia, Noel Malcolm provides a narrative chronicle of the country from its beginnings to its tragic end. Clarifying the various myths that have clouded the modern understanding of Bosnia's past, Malcolm brings to light the true causes of the country's destruction: the political strategy of the Serbian leadership, the conflict between the city and the countryside, the fatal inaction and miscalculations of Western politicians. Putting the Bosnia war into perspective, this volume celebrates the complex history of a country whose past, as well as its future, has been all but erased. At last, here is the guide for the general reader seeking a comprehensive and accessible account of the war in the former Yugoslavia.

Table of Contents

A Note on Names and Pronunciations
Maps
Introduction
1. Races, myths and origins: Bosnia to 1180
2. The medieval Bosnian state, 1180-1463
3. The Bosnian Church
4. War and the Ottoman system, 1463-1606
5. The Islamicization of Bosnia
6. Serbs and Vlachs
7. War and politics in Ottoman Bosnia, 1606-1815
8. Economic life, culture and society in Ottoman Bosnia, 1606-1815
9. The Jews and the Gypsies of Bosnia
10. Resistance and reform, 1815-1878
11. Bosnia under Austro-Hungarian rule, 1878-1914
12. War and the kingdom: Bosnia 1914-1941
13. Bosnia and the second world war, 1941-1945
14. Bosnia in Titoist Yugoslavia, 1945-1989
15. Bosnia and the death of Yugoslavia: 1989-1992
16. The destruction of Bosnia: 1992-1993
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Particularly impressive is the discussion of the Bosnian Church, which brings into a clear and accessible language the breakthroughs by Balkan and Western historians on early Bosnian Church history. Malcolm demolishes the mythologized history of the Serbian and Croatian militias by showing that the patterns of conversion in Bosnia were historically complex. He refutes the notion that present day Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims are derived in a straight pattern of blood descent from the 15th century. Indeed, there were large-scale conversions back and forth throughout the history of Bosnia.

This is no abstract scholarly debate. The stereotype that present-day Bosnian Muslims are descendants of "traitors" in the 15th century who betrayed Christianity is a key element in the attack on Bosnia and also a part of the mythology of "age old hatreds" promulgated by the architects of ethnic-cleansing and adopted by some Western policy makers and journalists.

Malcolm shows that Bosnia was for 500 years, despite its many tensions and wars, a successful civilization with different religions that engaged each other in complex ways far beyond the cliches of age-old hatreds.

This book is recommended for anyone who cares about the Balkans or who wishes to understand the stakes involved in the struggle against "ethnic cleansing."

Malcolm's analysis of the radical Serbian nationalism in Belgrade was unfortunately dismissed by some British political leaders and intellectuals. The horrors in Kosovo today are a tragic vindication of his analysis. Those who dismissed him with a facile refusal to acknowledge an unwelcome message, are left brutal evidence of what they denied.

Malcolm no doubt, and all of us, wish he had been wrong--or at least that his warnings, stated with such cogency and scholarly accuracy, had been heeded. There is still time to read this book now and allow the history of Bosnia to come through the smoke of genocide, ethnic-cleansing, and desires for religous apartheid based on historically false and destructive mythologies of age-old hatreds.


Very accurate but with small inaccuracies and nuances   September 22, 2004
RM (London Colney, HE UK)
13 out of 19 found this review helpful

Malcolm does a pretty good job in covering almost 1000 years of Slav history in Bosnia. Most of his book looks at Bosnia during the Ottoman Empire and the reign of the Kotromanic dynasty. His narrative for the most part is very clear-sighted and does not allow anger or bitterness to take over, unlike many other historians who have written books on the Balkans (Philip Cohen springs to mind)

Saying that, however, there are certain subjects that he just doesn't cover in enough detail, particularly since they were very important parts of Bosnia's history. For example, he mentions the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia during WW2 in passing, reserving only one sentence on this subject, and completely fails to mention that thousands upon thousands of Serbs, Jews and others perished there.

His last chapter about the most recent Bosnian war I found to be too short and simplistic. He blames forces in Serbia for most of the mayhem wrought upon Bosnia, which is fair enough, but does not even hint at the fact that Bosniacs and Croats also committed war crimes. While the Serbs were busy expelling and killing Bosniacs from their area of control, the Croats were also doing the same in Herzegovina and central Bosnia, culminating into a civil war between the Bosniacs and the Croats during 1992-1994. This side of Bosnia's tragedy is sadly neglected.

Ok, as the title describes, it is a SHORT history at the end of the day but it just seems to me as if he managed to cover the earlier parts of Bosnia's history very well but seems to slightly taper of at the end of the book. All in all, a good book which is certainly one of the more balanced books out there on Bosnia.