The Three Yugoslavias

Abstract

Ramet (Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology) is a distinguished leading scholar on Yugoslavia who has made important contributions to the substantial literature on that unhappy land. This first-rate volume is a substantially enlarged, rewritten edition of Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962, 1991 (CH, Feb'93, 30-3476). It is a must read posing big questions, e.g., why Yugoslavs have repeatedly failed to create an effective legitimate state structure and rule of law. Ramet rejects the myth, unfortunately widespread in the West, that the driving force has been ethnic conflict and ancient hatreds. Her work complements the study by V. P. Gagnon Jr., The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s (CH, Sep'05, 43-0597), by focusing on elite behavior. While she looks at prior state-building efforts (1918-29), she concentrates chiefly on Tito's Yugoslavia. Nearly half of this thick volume covers the post, 1989 period through KFOR and Kosovo. The inclusion of 150 pages of notes and more than 25 pages of bibliography underscore the deep research of this work, which concludes with a short chapter on the separate paths of Slovenia, Macedonia, and Croatia. Ramet throws much light on three Yugoslavias and also helps readers think about similar events elsewhere. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.-H. Steck, SUNY College at Cortland

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