The breakup of Yugoslavia ,after the death of Marshal Tito, and its descent into the madness of civil war was one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.
The Balkans have always been a powderkeg and unscrupulous power hungry leaders of competing ethnicities ,whose feuds stretched back many centuries, could easily light the fuse . Under Marshal Tito , these had been successfully kept in check.
I had been looking for books about the Balkans, comprising travel and history, ancient and modern.
These two books by Robert D.Kaplan fit the bill !
They are in parts, travel books, history, and an explanation for what went so badly wrong in that region in the 1980s and 1990s.
Balkan Ghosts,Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is a
a modern classic.
Adriatic: A Concert of Civilisations is a brilliant cross-pollination of history literature, art, architecture, and current events. Kaplan demonstrates that this unique region that exists at the intersection of civilizations holds revelatory truths for the future of global affairs.
Thanks to Philip Abraham Sir from Cochin Book Club for this.
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