Journey Journal

An inside look at the complex roots of Croatian history--from the earliest time to the present--as well as the many influences visitors will see on its towns, ports, and islands. One definite conclusion can be drawn about Croatia in the early 21st century: it has established itself as one of the worlds most coveted tourist destinations. Maps and line drawings.

In his travels through Croatia, Tony Fabijancic saw a world of peasants, shepherds and fishermen irrevocably giving way to the new reality of a modern European state. With a deft and sure touch, he records moments that capture the lingering spirit of the old world even as the former fabric of this place is unravelling forever. The author's profound familiarity with the extraordinary regionality of Croatia leads to memorable images of the country, and to sketches and unhurried ruminations on its people, its landscapes, kitchens, cities, and coastlines.

From the ashes of former Yugoslavia an independent Croatian state has arisen, the fulfillment, in the words of President Franjo Tudjman, of the Croats' "thousand-year-old dream of independence." Yet few countries in Europe have been born amid such bitter controversy and bloodshed: the savage war between pro-independence forces and the Yugoslav army left about one-third of the country in ruins and resulted in the flight of a quarter of a million of the country's Serbian minority. In this book an eyewitness to the breakup of Yugoslavia provides the first full account of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Croatia from its medieval origins to today's tentative peace. Marcus Tanner describes the creation of the first Croatian state; its absorption into feudal Hungary in the Middle Ages; the catastrophic experience of the Ottoman invasion; the absorption of the diminished country into Habsburg Austria; the evolution of modern Croatian nationalism after the French Revolution; and the circumstances that propelled Croatia into the arms of Nazi Germany and the brutal, home-grown "Ustashe" movement in the Second World War. Finally, drawing on first-hand knowledge of many of the leading figures in the conflict, Tanner explains the failure of Tito's Communists to solve Yugoslavia's tortured national problem by creating a federal state, and the violent implosion after his death. Croatia's unique position on the crossroads of Europe-between Eastern and Western Christendom, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans and between the old Habsburg and Ottoman empires-has been both a curse and a blessing, inviting the attention of larger and more powerful neighbors. The turbulence and drama of Croatia's past are vigorously portrayed in this powerful history.

Ante Gugo has collected and painstakingly researched all the most significant events which characterized the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the creation of the Republic of Croatia, placing them in an impressive historical as well as political context. He deals not only with the Croatian War of Independence (known as the Homeland War) - which culminated in "Operation Storm" and the liberation of a quarter of Croatian territory from four years of Serb military occupation - but also takes into account the five years preceding the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, dissecting the events from the second half of the 1980s that led directly to the Serbian war of aggression against Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The vast and mountainous area that makes up the Balkans is rife with discord, both cultural and topographical. And, as Simon Winchester superbly demonstrates in this intimate portrait of the region, much of the political strife of the past century can be traced to its inherent contrasts. With the aid of a guide and linguist, Winchester traveled deep into the region's most troublesome areas--including Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, and Turkey--just as the war was tearing these countries apart. The result is a book not just about war but also about how war affects the living. Both timeless and current, The Fracture Zone goes behind the headlines to offer a true picture of a region that has always been on the brink. Winchester's remarkable journey puts all the elements together--the faults, the fractures, and the chaos--to make sense out of a seemingly senseless place.

In the historical and literary imagination, the Balkans loom large as a somewhat frightening and ill-defined space, often seen negatively as a region of small and spiteful peoples, racked by racial and ethnic hatred, always ready to burst into violent conflict. The Balkans in World History re-defines this space in positive terms, taking as a starting point the cultural, historical, and social threads that allow us to see this region as a coherent if complex whole. Eminent historian Andrew Wachtel here depicts the Balkans as that borderland geographical space in which four of the world's greatest civilizations have overlapped in a sustained and meaningful way to produce a complex, dynamic, sometimes combustible, multi-layered local civilization. It is the space in which the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, of Byzantium, of Ottoman Turkey, and of Roman Catholic Europe met, clashed and sometimes combined. The history of the Balkans is thus a history of creative borrowing by local people of the various civilizations that have nominally conquered the region. Encompassing Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey, the Balkans have absorbed many voices and traditions, resulting in one of the most complex and interesting regions on earth.