Balkan Ghosts A Journey Through History

From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.

This new edition includes six opinion pieces written by Robert Kaplan about the Balkans between l996 and 2000 beginning just after the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and ending after the conclusion of the Kosovo war, with the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from power.

Robert D. Kaplan, a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, is the author of ten books on travel and foreign affairs that have been translated into many languages. They included Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, a sequel to Balkan Ghosts, a sequel to Balkan Ghosts. From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as “the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date” (The Boston Globe), Kaplans prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.

 

This new edition includes six opinion pieces written by Kaplan about the Balkans between 1996 and 2000, beginning just after the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and ending after the conclusion of the Kosovo War, with the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from power. "With remarkable clarity, [Kaplan] explains problems that all sides have lived with throughout the long history of the Balkan peninsula . . . Kaplan succeeds in presenting the everyday experience of different Balkan communities in a vivid and significant way. Balkan Ghosts offers the complexity, brutality, and beauty in traveling in both the past and the present."—The Seattle Times "In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. That November, while the world danced in the rubble of the wall, a journalist named Robert Kaplan was in Kosovo watching a riot between ethnic Serbs and Albanians. The future, Kaplan wrote, was not in a reuniting Germany but in a fragmenting Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, Kaplan saw the impending collapse of nation states and the rise of a Hobbesian jungle of gang wars, tribal slaughter and ideological jihads. Kaplan, of course, was right."—Porter J. Goss, Director of Central Intelligence

 

"Important . . . Kaplan is a striking and evocative writer."—The Washington Post

 

"Mr. Kaplan spares no individual and no nation . . . as he demonstrates his literary powers at their fullest."—The New York Times Book Review

 

"Kaplan is a striking and evocative writer, and the Balkans offer him all the richness of a García Marquez world, where the fantastic is everyday life."—San Francisco Examiner

 

"With remarkable clarity, [Kaplan] explains problems that all sides have lived with throughout the long history of the Balkan peninsula . . . Kaplan succeeds in presenting the everyday experience of different Balkan communities in a vivid and significant way. Balkan Ghosts offers the complexity, brutality, and beauty in traveling in both the past and the present."—The Seattle Times

 

"An often rewarding odyssey filled with vivid writing."—The Wall Street Journal

 

"Historical perspective makes Kaplan a superb observer . . . He artfully blends his reporter's notes with rich historical reflection."—Business Week

 

"A well-documented account of the Balkan's past and present . . . Kaplan . . . forcefully illustrates that the irreconcilable differences among Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnians are only one part of the seething ethic, religious, and cultural tensions tearing at a much larger region."—Pittsburgh Post Gazette

"In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. That November, while the world danced in the rubble of the wall, a journalist named Robert Kaplan was in Kosovo watching a riot between ethnic Serbs and Albanians. The future, Kaplan wrote, was not in a reuniting Germany but in a fragmenting Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, Kaplan saw the impending collapse of nation states and the rise of a Hobbesian jungle of gang wars, tribal slaughter and ideological jihads. Kaplan, of course, was right."--Porter J. Goss, Director of Central Intelligence

and#8220;Excellent description and shrewd observation.and#8221;and#160;

and#160;andldquo;The most vivid report, long or short, I have ever seen on Rumania . . . brilliantly written and mercilessly barbed.and#160;An unusually skillful and readable book.andrdquo;

"Well put together, always readable and often witty. . . . Countess Waldeck never protests too much; sometimes, one feels she might protest a little more. But all is forgiven in the end when her remarks are as shrewd as her conclusions are agreeable."

and#8220;One might ask why a contemporary reader would bother with a book so old and outdated. The answer is clear. First, Waldeck is an uncommonly talented writer whose prose is a pleasure to read. Second, she writes authoritatively. Rumania lay on the fault line between Allied and Axis powers and was up for grabs, and Waldeck understood the dynamics of this power struggle. . . . In Athene Palace, she documents all these momentous developments with skill and panache, giving a reader an insiderand#8217;s view of a nation and a people in turmoil and transition.and#8221;

and#8220;There are many reasons why this book should be read. Those interested in the war will appreciate Waldeckand#8217;s shrewdness as an observer of the political scene. . . . Athene Palace also merits appreciation for the entertaining vigour of its language, in which Waldeckand#8217;s personalityand#8212;catty, egotistical, mischievous and inquisitiveand#8212;is constantly felt. She writes with acuity, and#233;lan and a sassiness that can border on the camp. . . . Waldeckand#8217;s combination of political alertness and literary talent recommends Athene Palace to our age as surely as her own.and#8221;

This new edition includes six opinion pieces written by Robert Kaplan about the Balkans between 1996 and 2000. From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, Kaplan's prescient, enthralling and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.

National Bestseller

New Edition

"In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. That November, while the world danced in the rubble of the wall, a journalist named Robert Kaplan was in Kosovo watching a riot between ethnic Serbs and Albanians. The future, Kaplan wrote, was not in a reuniting Germany but in a fragmenting Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, Kaplan saw the impending collapse of nation states and the rise of a Hobbesian jungle of gang wars, tribal slaughter and ideological jihads. Kaplan, of course, was right."--Porter J. Goss, Director of Central Intelligence

From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.

This new edition includes six opinion pieces written by Robert Kaplan about the Balkans between l996 and 2000 beginning just after the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and ending after the conclusion of the Kosovo war, with the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from power

Robert D. Kaplan, a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, is the author of ten books on travel and foreign affairs translated into many languages. They included Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, a sequel to Balkan Ghosts.

"In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. That November, while the world danced in the rubble of the wall, a journalist named Robert Kaplan was in Kosovo watching a riot between ethnic Serbs and Albanians. The future, Kaplan wrote, was not in a reuniting Germany but in a fragmenting Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, Kaplan saw the impending collapse of nation states and the rise of a Hobbesian jungle of gang wars, tribal slaughter, and ideological jihads. Kaplan, of course, was right."---Porter J. Goss, Director of Central Intelligence

From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.

This new edition includes six opinion pieces written by Robert Kaplan about the Balkans between l996 and 2000, beginning just after the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and ending after the conclusion of the Kosovo war, with the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from power.

Robert D. Kaplan, a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, is the author of ten books on travel and foreign affairs translated into many languages. They included Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, a sequel to Balkan Ghosts.

From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.

This new edition includes six opinion pieces written by Robert Kaplan about the Balkans between l996 and 2000 beginning just after the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and ending after the conclusion of the Kosovo war, with the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from power.

On the day that Paris fell to the Nazis, R. G. Waldeck was checking into the swankiest hotel in Bucharest, the Athene Palace. A cosmopolitan center during the war, the hotel was populated by Italian and German oilmen hoping to secure new business opportunities in Romania, international spies cloaked in fake identities, and Nazi officers whom Waldeck discovered to be intelligent but utterly bloodless. A German Jew and a reporter for Newsweek, Waldeck became a close observer of the Nazi invasion. As King Carol first tried to placate the Nazis, then abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Waldeck was dressing for dinners with diplomats and cozying up to Nazi officers to get insight and information. From her unique vantage, she watched as Romania, a country with a pro-totalitarian elite and a deep strain of anti-Semitism, suffered civil unrest, a German invasion, and an earthquake, before turning against the Nazis.and#160;A striking combination of social intimacy and disinterest political analysis, Athene Palace evokes the elegance and excitement of the dynamic international community in Bucharest before the world had comes to grips with the horrors of war and genocide. Waldeckand#8217;s account strikingly presents the finely wrought surface of dinner parties, polite discourse, and charisma, while recognizing the undercurrents of violence and greed that ran through the denizens of Athene Palace.

Robert D. Kaplan, a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, is the author of more than a dozen books on travel and foreign affairs that have been translated into many languages. They included Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus and Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History.

Foreword by Robert D. Kaplanand#160;1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Rumanian Scene2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Athene Palace3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Germans4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Fifth Column5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Bessarabia6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Transylvania7and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The King8and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Abdication9and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Regina Mama10and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Bloodless Revolution11and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Military Mission12and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Hohe Tier13and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; November in Bucharest14and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; German Order15and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Rumanian Finale16and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Epilogue