Why did Yugoslavia fall apart? Was its violent demise inevitable? Did its population simply fall victim to the lure of nationalism? How did this multinational state survive for so long, and where do we situate the short life of Yugoslavia in the long history of Europe in the twentieth century? A History of Yugoslavia provides a concise, accessible, comprehensive synthesis of the political, cultural, social, and economic life of Yugoslavia—from its nineteenth-century South Slavic origins to the bloody demise of the multinational state of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Calic takes a fresh and innovative look at the colorful, multifaceted, and complex history of Yugoslavia, emphasizing major social, economic, and intellectual changes from the turn of the twentieth century and the transition to modern industrialized mass society. She traces the origins of ethnic, religious, and cultural divisions, applying the latest social science approaches, and drawing on the breadth of recent state-of-the-art literature, to present a balanced interpretation of events that takes into account the differing perceptions and interests of the actors involved. Uniquely, Calic frames the history of Yugoslavia for readers as an essentially open-ended process, undertaken from a variety of different regional perspectives with varied composite agenda. She shuns traditional, deterministic explanations that notorious Balkan hatreds or any other kind of exceptionalism are to blame for Yugoslavia’s demise, and along the way she highlights the agency of twentieth-century modern mass society in the politicization of differences. While analyzing nuanced political and social-economic processes, Calic describes the experiences and emotions of ordinary people in a vivid way. As a result, her groundbreaking work provides scholars and learned readers alike with an accessible, trenchant, and authoritative introduction to Yugoslavia's complex history.

When Yugoslavia was created in 1918, the new state was a patchwork of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and other ethnic groups. It still was in January 1929, when King Aleksandar suspended the Yugoslav constitution and began an ambitious program to impose a new Yugoslav national identity on his subjects. By the time Aleksandar was killed by an assassin’s bullet five years later, he not only had failed to create a unified Yugoslav nation but his dictatorship had also contributed to an increase in interethnic tensions. In Making Yugoslavs, Christian Axboe Nielsen uses extensive archival research to explain the failure of the dictatorship’s program of forced nationalization. Focusing on how ordinary Yugoslavs responded to Aleksandar’s nationalization project, the book illuminates an often-ignored era of Yugoslav history whose lessons remain relevant not just for the study of Balkan history but for many multiethnic societies today.

The term “Yugoslavia” first appeared in an article in the newspaper Slovenija in Ljubljana on Friday, October 19, 1849. The author of the article declared that he was not interested in politics, but only in the literary unification of Yugoslavs within the Austro-Hungary Empire. With ongoing conflicts and disparate forms of nationalism in and around historical Yugoslavia as its backdrop, Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs for the first time addresses the history and idea of a united Yugoslavia in and during which a true “Yugoslav” identity never really came into being . Following a series of wars and uprisings from 1875 onwards, the first nation-state of Southern Slavs, established after World War I, became the “Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes” — a competing nationalistic blender that would go through failure, revival and transformation of the concept of “Yugoslavia”.

Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material and observations gathered from his visit to Yugoslavia in 1999, Michael Parenti challenges mainstream media coverage of the war, uncovering hidden agendas behind the Western talk of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and democracy.

A unique survey of the evidence and academic debates surrounding the break-up of Yugoslavia.

An incisive and revealing history of how Yugoslavia plunged into violence in the 1990s Over the past two years, the entire world watched in horror as one of Europe's most stable countries plunged into an orgy of violence and bloodshed that has invoked comparisons to the Holocaust. Aside from empty threats and diplomatic hand wringing, the West has done little to stop the ethnic cleansing, the sieges, and the brutality that has characterized the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Contrary to common wisdom, the hyper-violent disintegration of the former Yugoslavia is not simply and exclusively the product of inherent and irrational ethnic animosities and centuries of strife. In this engaging book, journalist Christopher Bennett traces the turning point to the 1987 struggle within the Serbian Communist party which was between adherents of a Serb nationalist ideology -embodied by Slobodan Milosevic- and the other Yugoslavs who clung to the vision of a multinational state. As soon as Milosevic gained the upper hand, he ruthlessly purged his rivals and launched a massive campaign of media indoctrination to stir up Serb nationalism. This new nationalism, which has repelled the world since 1991, is primarily Milosevic's creation and not merely the result of historical enmity. As a student at two different Yugoslav universities in the 1980's, Bennett witnessed firsthand many if the critical events which contributed to Yugoslavia's destruction. He renders an incisive and accessible history, covering the period from Tito's dictatorship to the present day.