Wed05232012

Last update07:18:05 PM GMT

Books

Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know

  • PDF
 Image
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 29, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195373456
ISBN-13: 978-0195373455
Book Description
On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared its independence, becoming the seventh state to emerge from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. A tiny country of just two million people, 90% of whom are ethnic Albanians, Kosovo is central-geographically, historically, and politically-to the future of the Western Balkans and, in turn, its potential future within the European Union. But the fate of both Kosovo, condemned by Serbian leaders as a "fake state" and the region as a whole, remains uncertain.

In Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know, Tim Judah provides a straight-forward guide to the complicated place that is Kosovo. Judah, who has spent years covering the region, offers succinct, penetrating answers to a wide range of questions: Why is Kosovo important? Who are the Albanians? Who are the Serbs? Why is Kosovo so important to Serbs? What role does Kosovo play in the region and in the world? Judah reveals how things stand now and presents the history and geopolitical dynamics that have led to it. The most important of these is the question of the right to self-determination, invoked by the Kosovo Albanians, as opposed to right of territorial integrity invoked by the Serbs. For many Serbs, Kosovo's declaration of independence and subsequent recognition has been traumatic, a savage blow to national pride. Albanians, on the other hand, believe their independence rights an historical wrong: the Serbian conquest (Serbs say "liberation") of Kosovo in 1912.

For anyone wishing to understand both the history and possible future of Kosovo at this pivotal moment in its history, this book offers a wealth of insight and information in a uniquely accessible format.

Buy this book Buy this book
Search inside this book Search inside this book

The Albanian Question: Reshaping the Balkans

  • PDF
 Image
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: I. B. Tauris (December 26, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1860649742
ISBN-13: 978-1860649745
Book Description
“This pioneering book, by two foremost experts on Albanian affairs, is a brilliant account of key events in recent Balkan history” –The Tablet

In 1997 the previously little-known and isolated Balkan country of Albania exploded as the first armed uprising in mainland Europe since the 1920s brought the country to the brink of civil war. As the violence spread first to neighbouring Kosovo, then to south-east Serbia and finally to former Yugoslav Macedonia, the Albanian question increasingly took center stage in world affairs. This book examines Albania's place in the Balkans, a region which had been forced simultaneously to come to terms with the realities of a post-Communist world and the threat of Slobodan Milosevic's "Greater Serbia" project.

Buy this book Buy this book
Search inside this book Search inside this book

Kosova Express: A Journey in Wartime

  • PDF
 Image
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd (March 4, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1850657440
ISBN-13: 978-1850657446
Book Description
Unique eyewitness reporting from Prishtina, Kosova

James Pettifer gives a startling and evocative portrayal of the terror and fear under the Milosevic regime. As a writer for the London Times, he witnessed major events from the emergence of the Kosova Liberation Army in May 1996 to the massive refugee movements of 1998 and 1999. He recorded the ground war between the KLA and the Serbs, the NATO bombing campaign, and subsequent liberation of Kosova. Pettifer offers new insight into hitherto undisclosed links between several European governments and the Milosevic regime.

Pettifer outlines the interplay between the reality on the ground and the perceptions promoted by the international media. Kosova Express evokes the nightmare of Milosevic's police state and the lives of foreign correspondents.

James Pettifer  is professor at the Conflict Studies Research Centre of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in the United Kingdom. He is also a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and a regular broadcaster and commentator on the Balkan countries on radio and television. Pettifer is the author of The Turkish Labyrinth; Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity, with Miranda Vickers; and of other books.

Buy this book Buy this book
Search inside this book Search inside this book

Shadow Behind the Sun: Flight from Kosovo: A Woman's Story

  • PDF
 Image
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd (19 May 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1905207131
ISBN-13: 978-1905207138
Book Description
The commitment to those hurt, traumatised, exiled and derelict is both universal and personal, just as the account that follows this is. A face emerges out of the turbulent waters of history and speaks to us of where it has been. - George Szirtes

REMZIJE SHERIFI worked as a journalist with Radio Gjilan in Kosova. She lost her job, and almost her life, as the Milosevic regime steadily tightened its grip on the Albanian people who lived there.

In SHADOW BEHIND THE SUN she recounts her family’s history to shine a new light on the terrible events of the 1990s. Now a British citizen she has made her commitment to Asylum Seekers and other refugees, working with the Maryhill Integration Network in Glasgow.

The shadow of past events stands behind the sunrise of every new constitutional or social development. Can they be forgotten? Should they? There has never been so much displacement in the world as at the present time. Beside the history of the Kosovar people she describes the plight of Asylum Seekers in the here and now. Remzije Sherifi is a compassionate and visionary presence in difficult and changing times.

A BOOK THAT WILL OPEN MINDS AND CHANGE HEARTS.

Buy this book Buy this book
Search inside this book Search inside this book

Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency

  • PDF
 Image
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: University of Illinois Press (August 14, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0252033426
ISBN-13: 978-0252033421
Book Description
How a military insurgency led the way from war to peace

The military intervention by NATO in Kosovo was portrayed in American media as a necessary step to prevent the Serbian armed forces from repeating the ethnic cleansing that had so deeply damaged the former Yugoslavia. Serbia trained its military on Kosovo because of an ongoing armed struggle by ethnic Albanians to wrest independence from Serbia. Warfare in the Balkans seemed to threaten the stability of Europe, as well as the peace and security of Kosovars, and yet armed resistance seemed to offer the only possibility of future stability. Leading the struggle against Serbia was the Kosovo Liberation Army, also known as the KLA.

Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency provides a historical background for the KLA and describes its activities up to and including the NATO intervention. Henry H. Perritt Jr. offers firsthand insight into the motives and organization of a popular insurgency, detailing the strategies of recruitment, training, and financing that made the KLA one of the most successful insurgencies of the post-cold war era. This volume also tells the personal stories of young people who took up guns in response to repeated humiliation by "foreign occupiers," as they perceived the Serb police and intelligence personnel. Perritt illuminates the factors that led to the KLA's success, including its convergence with political developments in eastern Europe, its campaign for popular support both at home and abroad, and its participation in international negotiations and a peace settlement that helped pave the long road from war to peace.

"There is no one else capable of writing a book about any modern insurgency that would combine this kind of insider's knowledge with such an acute appreciation for all the external factors surrounding the struggle."--Andrew Baruch Wachtel, dean of the Graduate School and director of the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies, Northwestern University

Henry H. Perritt Jr. is a professor of law and director of the graduate program in financial services law at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. He is the author of numerous law review articles and books on international relations and law, technology and law, and employment law.

Buy this book Buy this book
Search inside this book Search inside this book

  • PDF

  • PDF

  • PDF

  • PDF

  • PDF

  • PDF

  • PDF

Anna Wiman

Anna Wiman
Freelance Writer and photographer

Elizabeth Gowing

Elizabeth Gowing
Co-Founder at The Ideas Partnership NGO

Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Henry H. Perritt Jr.
Professor of Law Chicago-Kent College

Drilon Gashi

Drilon Gashi
Comm. Counselor to the Prime Minister

Arlind V. Bytyqi

Arlind V. Bytyqi
Editor-in-chief
New Kosova Report
 

Book reviews

Books on Kosovo

Book Review

Interested on learning more about Kosovo, its history and culture?

Then go ahead to our book review section and find the latest book reviews from various authors and scholars!