The Ottoman history department has been found by the help of the Turkish government financing, and had as first aim to promote the denial of the Armenian genocide (The financing and foundation of the “Turkish studies” could be found in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 9, Number 1, Spring 1995, pages 1-22 Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian Genocide). Not only these study institutes have been used as rampant propellers for the denial of a known genocide, but the foundation of programmes in the Middle East department of prestigious Universities such as Princeton (See Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 9, Number 1, Spring 1995, pages 1-22 Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian Genocide. Also many articles have treated about the subject, one for example appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 27, 1995) is without precedent in the history of corruption of intellectuals paid to deny what we may call the undeniable. McCarthy is one of these intellectuals, it is not only that he use methods such as the ones used by Paul Rassinier, (Holocaust denier, the first one to introduce demographic calculations to deny the Holocaust) but his techniques could be questioned and even rejected due to mathematical manipulations, an analyse of McCarthy questionable calculations could be found in a French work: Négationnisme et théorie des populations stables : le cas du génocide arménien. By Frédéric Paulin, (completing a Ph.D, EHESS) or also in the analyse of McCarthy work “Muslim and Minorities…” by the expert Dr. Daniel Panzac, in “Analyse bibliographique…” Hilmar Kaiser a German expert on the Armenian genocide also critic McCarthy calculation techniques in an interview by Dirk van Delft in the NRC Handelsblad, Page 51, Amsterdam, Saturday, 27 May 2000. “The American researcher Justin McCarthy, cites the number 600 000 for Armenians and 2.5 million for the Moslems killed. But if you put the figures next to one another, it does not make sense. There are elementary errors in arithmetic. In demographic circles, the McCarthy figures are ignored. I know insurance company employees who don't pay any attention to McCarthy's figures. Not because McCarthy is pro-Turkish, but because his calculations are wrong.”

McCarthy participation on a new book published directly from the Turkish government: The Armenians in the late Ottoman period. From The Turkish Historical Society for the Council of Culture, Arts and Publications of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Ankara 2001. Or his direct involvement of the newly founded Institute of Armenian study the new invention of the Turkish government in order to promote and propagate denial. Also must be noted, his presentation during the hearings on H. Res. 398, a resolution recognising the Armenian genocide by the United-States, where he even glorify the Turkish government: “The Turkish government felt that pressing the Turkish case against Armenians and others would rekindle old hatreds and invite war, so the Turks said nothing of their grievances. This was the right decision for the time. The unfortunate result was that no one spoke for the Turks.” Very intriguing statement made by McCarthy, when the Turkish governments from the beginning encouraged hatred against Armenians by financing anti-Armenian works, even reviews such as “These Armenian dogs” have been published with the acceptance eyes of the government. Another surprising speech made by McCarthy was republished in the Turkish press review Wed. 25 Oct 00. "However, the US Congress should have rejected the bill not just because of the political reasons, but because it is a lie." This statement made by McCarthy is not one that a professional could afford to make. Claming the genocide as being a lie is like saying that Armenians are liars, not only this, it is also saying that every specialists in the field, are liars, the Holocaust and Genocide association is a liar association composed of liars. McCarthy didn’t say the proposition is a mistake, or the genocide clam is made by people that are mistaken, but simply say that it is a lie, exactly the same kind of words used by the Turkish government. Like this is not enough, McCarthy even receives founds directly from Turkish study associations financed by the Turkish government itself. For example he received and probably still receive ITS grants(Institute of Turkish study, promoted grant as one of the major aim to finance deniers), as well as ARIT grants (American Research Institute in Turkey, grants and finance American searchers, and also a major aim to propagate denial). McCarthy in fact even recognised that his aim was to re-write Turkish state picture at a conference in Bosphorus University, a university that is one of the major places where denialist work are created. The fact is that he haven’t only admitted that he will try to correct Turkish “image” but also that other “professional” such as him are working for the same aim, McCarthy speech has been reported in the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, ATA-USA, Fall 1995 - Winter 1996 "Dr. McCarthy stated that he, Dr. Lowry, Professor Stanford Shaw, and many others have been working to correct the image of Turkey end Turkish History in the United State. " (p.70)

The Assembly of Turkish American Associations receives also many grants from the republic of Turkey, and is the center of the denialist instrument in the United-State, must be mentioned here that McCarthy implication with this association can not be clearer, when, probably by the demand of this association, McCarthy wrote a book titled, Turks and Armenians (must also be mentioned here that the book has been published by the Assembly of Turkish American association (ATAA)), the title of this work has in fact nothing to do with it’s content, since all what the book does is to deny the Armenian genocide, make the victims the aggressors etc (...)

Much atrocities were committed on Turks and Moslems under the tutelege of European powers towards the end of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century. European powers just watched it as they did in Bosnis recently.In western sources these atrocities and genocide against the moslems by the christian subjects of the empire were flip-flopped and many histories talk about moslem atrocities against christian subjects. FINALLY THE TRUTH COMES OUT. Excellent book-highly recommended.

Yesterday's Ottoman Empire today's Turkey is probably stuck in one of the tougest and oldest neighboorhoods in the world and understanding the near history becomes good antitode for peeking into the mind set of people today. All the recent terror events have their origin in the middle east, a part of the world which was interestingly much more calmer 200-300 years ago under the Ottoman then it is now. McCarthy by style can at times sound more like he is writing about polymer chemistry due to his attention to numerical detail in historical research but i personally think this is something very much missing in history in general. Death & Exile also by te author led me to this book and i actually found it better, more readable. A good look into the last era of the Ottoman Empire, its highly multi-ethnic construct and their intricate social upheveal...

I read and enjoyed City of Tears in electronic format on my Rocket eBook. A story rich in detail, it is set in the violent era of pre-Mongolian central Asia. Balkan delves deeply into the lives and times of rival nomadic warrior tribes, each fighting for territory and supremity. If you like your books filled with blood and mayhem, this is the story for you!

This book, while well-written and undoubtedly well researched, suffers slightly from the author's choice of words in dialogue which sometimes sound colloquial and modern.

Eric Balkan is quite a storyteller. He spins a good yarn in "City of Tears", mixing historical fact with fiction. The story has almost as many characters as a Russian novel but, despite the exotic names, is not difficult to follow or confusing. However, he's in dire need of an editor, as the multitude of grammatical errors, punctuation goofs, and spelling mistakes proved fatally distracting to this reader.

The Kaskir nomads have been beleaguered by other nomads, the imperial army along with anyone else who has happened to come along. Their villages have been exhausted, children kidnapped until they are now very nearly at the end of their rope. Ailana, wife of the Kaskir chief's son, is resolute in her determination to be reunited with her children once again. Turan Khan, Jersak nomad ruler, is every bit as determined in his pursuit to demolish D'nar first and the other nomad clans second.

City of Tears is an excellent piece of writing with a compelling story to tell. I enjoyed the book very much. This work by writer Balkan is an action packed thriller filled with historical content and the brutal actuality of a period we can only conjecture today. Writer Balkan composes a representation of the barbarous life accomplished by those existing in medieval Central Asia. Following the struggles of the Kaskir as they struggle to retain their identity in an atmosphere where that is all but impossible we catch a glimpse of a life heretofore hidden from our view. The story weaves the mystery of what has become of Jinji, Ailana's closest friend, through the narrative with a most appealing adroitness.

Characters presented by writer Balkan in City of Tears are well thought out, creditable and at times, down right frightening. The time interval presented in this book was one in which the delicate or halt had limited opportunity for survival. Balkan's work is peopled with fascinating characters who are robust, inflexible, puissant people facing arduous times at best.

Writer Balkan's regard for the time period portrayed in City of Tears combined with his solid erudition based on much research have produced a work of the highest standard. Highly recommended for everyone who enjoys a good mystery along with their historical fiction.

Reviewed by: molly martin

I would like also to have contakt with a reader from Kansas City, MO United States about the KING ZOG book that he has found. Please would you give me his mail address or telephone number.I would be grateful if could give me this information.

THANK you .

As a collector of Albanian coins, and specifically King Zog era Albanian coins, I found the book absolutely fascinating. A wee bit academic in it's approach, and lacking illustrations, it is still a MUST read book for anyone interested in the Zog period of Albanian history. If you are familliar with Egyptian history of the King Farouk period, you will see many similarities in their reign. Both kings were adept at playing the diplomatic game for a while, only to end up being jerked around by friend and foe alike.

The last chapter of the Zog book is especially interesting, as it covers the years Zog spent in exile, jumping from country to country. Somewhat of a sad ending, but the book really made the coins in my collection come alive. Coins, which, are probably some of the most beautiful issues from any nation on the planet during the 20th century.

I would like to personally thank Bernd for bringing me the knowlage of such a great yet tradgic man. The idea that the albanian rallies could amount to such horrid tales of delusion and defeat makes me proud to be american. I don't take risks with books. So don't take a risk and loose this one. I love it. I ring her (girl from a few houses down)up, and ask if sheis in love with me. .... again.

In this book, Mr. Vryonis speaks for an institute whose avowed purpose is to propogate a particular version of history, a version which demonizes all things Turkish. In short, it's an unhelpful contribution to a complex--even Balkan--set of problems and an oversimplification of a quite complicated historical legacy. Look for more objective books if you need background on these questions: this one is a rant.

This book is a review by Prof. Vryonis of a book that was authored in French by the late prime minister of Turkey, Turgut Ozal. The apparent aim of the book is to make propaganda about Turkey, Turkish history, the language etc. that is so incredible that it could not possibly be believed by anyone even passingly familiar with history. Vryonis does a great job deflating this incompetent job of chauvinism and bungled attempt at historical revisionsim. Ozal goes down as just another Turkish politician who gave his people a bad name. A must read for all those interested in learning the dark side of modern Turkey.

The author, a well known scholar, provides an excellent analysis of how the modern Turkish state, ever since its founding in 1923, has worked intensively, though incompetently, on distorting history.

This is done by reviewing a recent book written in French by the assistants of the late president Ozal of Turkey, in order to convince the Europeans that Turkey should be allowed to enter the European Union.

Mr. Ozal, turned historian, attempts to persuade the readers of his book of such things as: all Greek history is in fact Turkish history; all history stems from the Turks and could not be possible without the contribution of the Turks; all language stems from Turkish etc.

In the second part of the book, Dr. Vryonis examines how the Turkish state is buying influence in the United States by bankrolling the work of corrupt American scholars to parrot such "theories" as those in Mr. Ozal's book and by endowing chairs of Turkish Studies in American universities.

The chief characteristic of Turkish civilization when it comes into contact with other civilizations is that an orgy of taking and usurpation develops -- that is the Turks taking from the other civilization. The current book -- superbly documented with Turkish as well as international sources -- shows that this cultural tendency to usurp and appropriate extends not just to material wealth and to the genes of the forcibly Turkified populations, but -- beyond that -- to the history of the peoples the Turks come into contact with.

In our times this tendency is manifested by the Turkish state denying the identity of 20% of its population which is Kurdish and by its insistence to refer to them as "mountain Turks" while prohibiting public speech or publications in Kurdish.

The book should be read by all, but especially by those who believe that Turkey is a Western nation. Distortion of history and manipulation of national identity is not a particularly western value.

Since this book is a compilation of articles by a number of authors, its overall quality is necessarily unbalanced: some contributions are much better than others. Really the most interesting piece is by the book's editor, Mestrovic, who wrote the introduction (and the epilogue). In it he introduces the concepts of "postemotionalism," which roughly refers to the concept of viewing current events through the prism of emotionally-charged events, and even misconceptions, of the past. In the specific case of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, this means the widespread practice of viewing the current wars through the prism of World War II events in Yugoslavia. This, Mestrovic and several other authors imply, led to the de facto support of the Serbian side (who they view as the primary aggressors in the current wars) on the part of the international community. However, after Mestrovic's introduction, the other chapters are generally not as strong, or interesting. Those written by Philip Cohen, Norman Cigar and James Sadkovich--all dealing with the wartime events and media coverage of 1990-1992, are actually dated since their conclusions and predictions have generally been contradicted by subsequent events. The Sadkovich piece is also a bit tedious, as he meticulously details and criticizes American media coverage without offering much in the way of analysis. The text is also riddled with footnotes (of which there are 17 pages for a less than 30-page article). Since this book was published in 1996, it's surprising that the editor didn't ask the authors of these pieces to update them. Also of interest is the contribution by sociologist Slaven Letica, who reviews the development of nationalism among the Serbs during the 1980s from a psychological aspect. Despite the pretentious and jargon-filled introduction, it provides some good insight into the immediate reasons behind the conflict in Yugoslavia. All in all, the book is interesting because it offers a point of view that differs from that generally presented by the Western media, and Mestrovic's "postemotional" concept seems quite valid. However, at places the criticism of Serbian culpability is excessive, while there is also some unnecessary exculpation of Croatian actions. However, as criticism of Western, and especially American, attitudes and responses to the Balkan Wars, the book is often right on the mark.

The editor develops the theme of 'post-emotionalism' (as an alternative to post-modernism), by which he means 'the culture industry's manipulation of emotionally charged historical events'. He contributes a stimulating essay on the Orwellian misrepresentation of the Bosnian war in the West, while other contributors range more widely. Especially valuable are the important analysis of the Serbian-Croatian war by Norman Cigar, and a searching study by Igor Primoratz of the way in which the war was misrepresented in Israel.

I certainly agree with the previous review that this is Ugresic's 'weakest' work. Otherwise, Ugresic is perhaps the greatest living Croatian prose writer. I actually read the Croatian original edition, titled "Americki fikcionar," and while I did enjoy many of the author's observations and insights, I often found her brooding over her plight tedious. While I agree that Ugresic was grossly mistreated and maligned for her anti-nationalist stance by the government-controlled media in Croatia, she left Croatia, or the former Yugoslavia, basically unscathed with at least some certainty of being able to build a new life elsewhere. This stands in contrast to the thousands of refugees who left this region with absolutely nothing and little hope of any secure future for themselves or their children. A vast majority of them were/are as equally blameless for their plight as Ugresic. In addition, I found the scene in which Ugresic tells a black homeless man in Central Park that she "is a nigger in her own country" somewhat pretentious to say the least. However repugnant the hyped-up nationalism of today's Croatia may be to Ugresic, her alienation is the result of personal choice, not of birth. Nonetheless, Ugresic's book is still worth reading, for if nothing else, it reflects the feelings of confusion and estrangement felt by many intellectuals from throughout the former Yugoslavia.

This is the weakest literary work of one of the respected contemporary writers from former Yugoslavia. While I simply LOVED Ms. Ugresic's book "In the Jaws of Life", this book of her impressions on life in America is not quite worthy of her talents. In many of Ms. Ugresic's stories I could see myself - foreigner in thie huge country of choices, weird characters, people who mean good, but always say the wrong thing. It took me many years to get the answers for which Ms. Ugresic is herself trying to find answers to in this work. I can only think: a) Ms. Ugresic has not been in USA long enough to learn the "rules of the game" and b) she simply made wrong choice of friends during her stay in USA (like that superficial guy Norman, mentioned in several of her stories). I only hope that Ms. Ugresic will find better life and nicer impressions during her current stay in Berlin. While I admire Ms. Ugresic's respect for both Danilo Kis and Ivo Andric (she quotes both of these writers in her book; first at the beginning and the second in the last story of her book) - I must admit that "Have a Nice Day" does not deserve comparison worth the works of Kis and Andric. Ms. Ugresic's simple way of storytelling simply clashes with complexity of thought of both Kis and Andric. I sincerely hope Ms. Ugresic will focus on issues that make her work really good. It is painfull to loose one's country. That pain however should never interfere with great talent this writer has. I am looking forward to Ms. Ugresic's new work which, I am sure, will get to the world the best of her.

Can we understand the history of a nation by looking its leaders? Political biographies seek to explore the public and private lives of presidents,prime ministers, etc. and thus try to enhance our understanding of historical events. Similarly, Pavkovic's and Radan's collection of essays on Serbs and their leaders highlights some aspects and 'present new perspectives' (p.vii) on the history of Serbs. Already the selection of 'leaders' covered by this volume indicates some of the problems associated with such an approach, as the editors concede. Of the eight biographical chapter, seven cover kings, generals and other Serbian leaders of the firsthalf of the 20th century, the essay on Slobodan Milosevic stands alone to represent the second half of the century. Did Serbs have no leaders between 1945 and 1988? Obviously Communist Yugoslavia, despite the predominant role played by Tito for its first three and a half decades, possessed a number of Serbian politicians in leading positions, besides Milovan Djilas and Aleksander Rankovic, both mentioned by the editors: Latinka Perovic and Marko Nikezic during the 'liberal' phase in the late sixties and early seventies, as well as later on Dragoslav Markovic, Petar and Ivan Stambolic in the seventies and early eighties. Leaving out these leaders insinuates the wide-spread perception that post-war Yugoslavia was ruled against and not with the participation of Serbs. Finally, the question remains, of whether Tito was a Serb leader. The renaming of the bulevar Tito into bulevar Srpskih Vladara (Serbian Leaders) in downtown Belgrade has given rise to the joke that actually the name did not change at all-nobody ruled longer over the Serbs than Tito. Similarly, one has to question the 'ethnic' definition of leaders in the volume, which eventually obscures a significant chapter of Serbian history. If one is to exclude Tito, the title of the book would be more appropriately called "Serb Leaders in the 20th century" The tone of the different chapters varies greatly. Some take a distinctive national(ist) tone, accepting explicitly or implicitly the premises of national historiography, such as Branislav Gligorijevic's chapter of Alkesandar Karadjordjevic ('King Aleksandar was a national king in a sense that cannot be applied to any European monarch going back centuries. He was of pure Serbian blood on both sides of the family, proud of his peasant origins ...', p.140), or Kosta Nikolic's chapter on Dragoljub-Draza Mihailovic, which devotes more space to the reasons why Britain 'betrayed' the Chetniks than their atrocities. Others, such as Lenard Cohen's, tries to paint a more differentiated picture. The chapter on Slobodan Milosevic by Cohen offers some interesting insights, unfortunately, however, restricts itself to the period of his rise and refrains from discussing the politics of Milosevic, once in power. Cohen's analysis is important in terms of identifying the instrumentalization of nationalism and pointing out that nationalism, just like communism provided an adequate tool for Milosevic in his quest to preserve his personal power. Other chapters discuss Nikola Pasic, Dragutin-Dimitrijevic-Apis, King Petar Karadjordjevic, Radomir Putnik, Prince Pavle and Karadjordjevic. Returning to the original question, we have to note that the (short) biographies of political and military leaders only help to supplement, but not replace a general history of Serbian history in the 20th century (which is still lacking in English). Considering, that Serbs have spent seven decades of this century in Yugoslavia, increases the need to consider a history of leaders in the larger context of the first and second Yugoslavia.

I don't agree with the other reader who emphasizes the uneven distribution of figures presented here: Western readers know far, far less about the pre-World War II period in Serbia and which is a master key to what would follow: American and Central European history books leave out much too much, in fact nearly everthing that would be important in the World War II and post-war period. This pathetically biased treatment against Serbia in the American history books can be viewed as in part rebalanced in this book and also for that reason this is worth reading! The more I read in this area, the more shocked I am in what we have read in High School history texts and at University.

I learned more about the history of the Balkans in this book than I had learned in all the years of reading and TV watching before now. However, I really had to work at it.
I found myself reading and re-reading the same sentences over and over trying to figure out what the author was trying to say. Sometimes the problem was his skipping a few hundred years in narrating events, without telling you that was what he was doing. It was not infrequent to find a series of events told in a non-serial manner.
Another problem can be demonstrated with this sentence from page 86: "At dawn, two more shots shattered the evening air as the last hostages, Frederick Vyner and Count Alberto de Boyl, were each executed with a bullet to the back of the head." If you found yourself rereading that sentence wondering why you were not able to grasp its meaning immediately, you have company. There are a great many sentences and paragraphs with this kind of internal consistencey problem in this book.
The early chapters seem to have been written with some care to communicate the human aspect of the Balkan situation. However, by mid-book, the author seems to have tired of his subject, and tends to list events in catalog form. The absence of context in these situations (often even to the extent of leaving the historical timing uncertain), leaves much to be desired.
Yes, I am glad I read it. I did learn important background material from it. However, it was not the pleasure reading history usually is for me.

The book does a good job of going over the Southern Balkans conflict with the Ottoman Empire from the Greek perspective. For 500 years the author gives us a good general overview. This is for most of the book. Suddenly he goes into great detail in the the short second to last chapter about the "First" and "Second Balkan Wars". The level of detail in this chapter does not match the previous chapters. In the last chapter he skips to a few thoughts on the conflict in the 90s but offers us only a few pages. Missing entirely is the WWII and Tito's arrival on the scene. 50% of the photos depict the damage caused by NATO in the 1999 conflict over Kosovo. No photos of what the Serbs did to the Albanians are shown. Considering that only a few pages of the book were dedicated to the 1999 conflict, why so many photos and why so one sided?

The violence in this book is so appalling that it becomes almost amusing after a while.There is far more emphasis on violence than on culture. Some of the anecdotes are interesting, and nearly mythical in their dimensions, particularly the ones occurring in the 14th century--but also the stories surrounding at least two 20th Century political assassinations, stories surrounding the figure of Ali Pasha(and of the legendary Albanians who would not submit to his rule), the incredible brutality of the Turks against the Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople during the Greek Independence Rebellion,and also against the Armenians, the story of the occupation of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade, and the like. One regularly encounters decapitations, genocide, highway banditry, and irregular armies in this book. There is also some extensive discussion of the role of Europe (and Russia) in diplomatically resolving the conflicts in the region.

If you know anything about the region and recent events, this book will not enlighten you further. If you don't know anything about what went on in Kosovo, but would like to, "A Village Destroyed," by Fred Abrahms is a much better source. If you want to know what it's like to be a green newspaper reporter covering his first war this might be of some interest.

"Beyond the MOuntains of the Damned" is a journalistic account of the 1999 war in Kosovo told through both the eyes of journalist Matthew McAllester as well as several of the victims. The senseless brutality wrought upon the Muslim majority by the Serbs is well chronicled. The Kosovo "ethnic clensing" effort lacked the systemic nature of the Nazi genocide or even the occasional grand scale of some of the atrocities committed in Bosnia, but it was no less horrific. Albnaians had their homes burned and their villiages destroyed and many were shot as the Serbs attempted to drive them out.

Most of the action in the book takes place in and around the city of Pec, in eastern Kosovo. It was among the hardest hit regions in the territory. McAllester spent the three month war infiltrating Kosovo around in this region, though he never made to Pec until after the war because he would certainly have been killed by the Serbs. Meanwhile in Pec, an ALbanian butcher named Isa Bala and his family tried to stay inconspicuous and wait out the killing. Thier fate ultimately gives this story its gravity.

The only knock against the book is that for the most part it lacks a broader perspective. The political events surrounding the war and the history that led to Kosovo's destruction get some mention, but not enough for the avearge reader. Also, the larger war outside the Pec region gets only superficial coverage. Nevertheless, this is still a disturbing account of modern genocide and of the banality of man's evil.

I followed the war in Kosovo by reading about it in the newspapers. Then, like the bulk of Americans, pretty much forgot about it once it was over. But thanks to McAllester's exquisite, journalistic eye for detail, I feel as if I was actually there, a witness somehow to the atrocities that took place.
I have never had a particular interest in, or understanding of, the Balkans. Now after reading Beyong the Mountains of the Damned I hunger to know as much as possible.
This is no ordinary historical account. It is compelling and it stays with you after you are done. It reads with the breeze of fiction. What is petrifying, however, is that the characters are real and so are their stories. Chapter 12, The Killing, may be the most powerful chapter I've ever read in any book of this kind. While reading alone, I gasped and cried out loud.
I highly recommend this book to anyone with a particular interest in Kosovo and Serbia. But it is not only for those with a specialized interest in the region. It is for anyone who appreciates good writing and courageous reporting.

many people that are obviously lapping it up as well researched truth. What we have here is rehashed Croatian & Vatican propaganda that can be easily refuted by any serious, unbiased, scholarly college freshman.

Mr. Anzulovic, a Croatian nationalist has written a book only a croat nationalist could write. One which essentially blames all the Balkans troubles on the Serbs. In that classic Balkan style, he simply omits any reference to Croatian crimes and builds a simplistic and at times, erroneous case against Serbs. The fact that the entire Serbian community was eradicated by Croatia in 1995 - a full 50 years after Nazi Croatia tried to do in in WWII, is avoided. Anzulovic chooses to ignore the details and simply parrots Zagrebs party propganda line.

I was well impressed by this book. Unfortunately, I am a bit troubled by the negative reviews that a number of other reviewers have given this book. No doubt, many of them are from people of Serbian or Orthodox decent. Regretablly, even some of the most open-minded Serbs and Greeks that I know tend to downplay the ugliness that is a part of our past, probably because it is a threat to their sense of identity in some way. I guess every culture has that though to some extent, I am ashamed of America's failure to come to terms with the genocide against Native Americans over the last 500 years, and the conditions they live today. Many Americans may just find it too troubling to come to terms with the fact that this nation was partially built on the blood of its indigenious peoples (as well as African slaves). That is a dark side of America's past many would rather forget. The same hold's true for Serb's and their history.

The author did a very impressive job exposing the deep roots of Serbia's national myths, which has fed an exlusivist ethnic based nationalism derived from a medieval rather than modern notion of a nation. I found his evidence very persuasive in most respects.

However, I do agree with many of the critics though that the book was weaker for failing to stress much on the Ustasa regime and the atrocities committed by the present day Tudjman-HDZ regime, which played a signifcant role in the current polarized climate (in other words, Milosevic and Serbs are not to be blamed entirely, although they are of primary responsiblity for the region's suffering). However, that does not mean this book is not without scholarly merit. Afterall, the book was about Serbs and their myths, not Croats, Bosniaks or Albanians.