This volume concentrates on the Balkan wars and World War II, focusing particularly on Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia since 1945.

The authors in this volume seek to treat the modern history of the Balkans from a transnational and relational perspective in terms of shared and connected, as well as entangled, histories, transfers and crossings.

Volume I discusses the history of the major Balkan nationalities. It describes the differing conditions experienced under Ottoman and Habsburg rule, but the main emphasis is on the national movements, their successes and failures to 1900, and the place of events in the Balkans in the international relations of the day.

The history of the Balkans has been a distillation of the great and terrible themes of 20th century history-the rise of nationalism, communism, fascism, genocide, identity and war. Written by one of the leading historians of the region, this is a new interpretation of that history, focusing on the uses and legacies of nationalism in the Balkan region. In particular, Professor Veremis analyses the influence of the West-from the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise and collapse of Yugoslavia. Throughout the state-building process of Greece, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria and later, Albania, the West provided legal, administrative and political prototypes to areas bedevilled by competing irredentist claims. At a time when Slovenia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Croatia have become full members of the EU, yet some orphans of the Communist past are facing domestic difficulties, A Modern History of the Balkans seeks to provide an important historical context to the current problems of nationalism and identity in the Balkans.

A new edition of the classic travelogue exploring the Balkan Peninsula’s political, social, religious, and economic past. 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” (Boston Globe), Kaplan’s prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic. This new edition of Balkan Ghosts includes six opinion pieces written by Robert 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. Praise for Balkan Ghosts “The product of over a decade of travel and research, this is one of precious few works that allows a Western reader a look into the tortured soul of the Balkan peoples. . . . A superior narrative. . . . Kaplan is a master of this genre.” —Library Journal “A memorable portrait of an increasingly important region.” —Kirkus Review

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.

Examines the origins of political violence in the Balkans since the 19th century, while treating the region as an integral part of modern European history, reminding us that political violence and ethnic cleansing are hardly unique to this region.

With a new introduction by TRAIAN STOIANOVICH A monumental work of scholarship, The Balkans Since 1453 stands as one of the great accomplishments of European historiography. Long out of print, Stavrianos' opus both synthesizes the existing literature of Balkan studies since World War I and demonstrates the centrality of the Balkans to both European and world history, a centrality painfully apparent in recent years. At last, the cornerstone book for every student of Balkan history, culture and politics is now available once again.