New Kosova Report

Books

Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know

	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.
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The Albanian Question: Reshaping the Balkans

	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.
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Kosova Express: A Journey in Wartime

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

	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.
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Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency

	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.
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Kosovo (Bradt Travel Guide)

	Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides; First edition edition (November 1, 2007) Language: English ISBN-10: 1841621994 ISBN-13: 978-1841621999 Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
Book Description Kosovo is likely to become an independent state in 2007, making this Bradt guide a ‘must-buy’ for visitors from the country’s diaspora (which is believed to number over a million), for the many NGOs living out there and, as always, for those keen to explore off the beaten track. Ringed by high mountains crossed by a series of conquerors over the centuries, the country boasts Ottoman mosques, Serbian Orthodox churches, monasteries, vineyards and extravagant KLA war memorials. The capital Pristina offers a surprising contrast with its growing number of vibrant restaurants, bars and shops, along with Kosovo’s top ski resort, Brezovica, which offers some of the best skiing in southeastern Europe.
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The Case for Kosova: Passage to Independence

	Paperback: 210 pages Publisher: Anthem Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2006) Language: English ISBN-10: 184331245X ISBN-13: 978-1843312451 Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
Book Description The Case for Kosova is an excellent collection of cases addressed by names that have become authorities on the Kosovo issue. Ann Di Lellio has put together Janusz Bugajski, Bernd Fisher, Noel Malcolm, Julie Mertus, Owen Pearson and many other social scientist, journalists and historians who give their views on range of issues facing Kosovo's independence. I highly recommend this book to anyone with interest in the Balkans especially Kosovo and to anyone studying nation-building and development.
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Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo

	Paperback: 328 pages Publisher: Anthem Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2006) Language: English ISBN-10: 0801445396 ISBN-13: 978-0801445392 Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
Book Description In June 1999, after three months of NATO air strikes had driven Serbian forces back from the province of Kosovo, the United Nations Security Council authorized creation of an interim civilian administration. Under this mandate, the UN was empowered to coordinate reconstruction, maintain law and order, protect human rights, and create democratic institutions. Six years later, the UN's special envoy to Kosovo, Kai Eide, described the state of Kosovo: "The current economic situation remains bleak. . . . respect for rule of law is inadequately entrenched and the mechanisms to enforce it are not sufficiently developed. . . . with regard to the foundation of a multiethnic society, the situation is grim." In Peace at Any Price, Iain King and Whit Mason describe why, despite an unprecedented commitment of resources, the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), supported militarily by NATO, has failed to achieve its goals. Their in-depth account is personal and passionate yet analytical and tightly argued. Both authors served with UNMIK and believe that the international community has a duty to intervene in regional conflicts, but they suggest that Kosovo reveals the difficult challenges inherent in such interventions. They also identify avoidable mistakes made at nearly every juncture by the UN and NATO. We can be sure that the international community will be called on to intervene again to restore the peace of shattered countries. The lessons of Kosovo, cogently presented in Peace at Any Price, will be critically important to those charged with future missions.
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Kosovo: A Short History

	Paperback: 544 pages Publisher: Pan Books; New Ed edition (August 9, 2002) Language: English ISBN-10: 0330412248 ISBN-13: 978-0330412247 Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.7 inches Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
Book Description Kosovo, a 55-mile-long plateau in southern Serbia bordering Albania and Macedonia, should by all rights be a historical and political backwater. A Bulgarian geographer who visited Kosovo during World War I remarked that it was "almost as unknown and inaccessible as a stretch of land in Central Africa." The observation would prove ironically fitting by the '90s, as Central Africa and Kosovo both became sites of widespread genocide, fueled by ethnic hatreds, of the deepest international significance. Noel Malcolm, a British historian and journalist who has written extensively about the Balkans (including a companion volume of sorts on Bosnia), provides an overview of Kosovo's long-standing cultural divisions in his "short history" (although, at more than 500 pages, a not so short book). Readers following the unfolding war in Kosovo through newspaper and television coverage may well ask why ethnic Albanians and Serbs are struggling so violently to command the small region. Kosovo, Malcolm explains, is the birthplace of Serbian nationalism; the defeat of Serbian forces there in 1389 by Turkish troops became emblematic of the fall of the Serbian empire, as it led to Turkish domination of the Balkans. Contemporary warriors of Serbia are, in Malcolm's eyes, evidently attempting to reverse the course of history by reclaiming the land from its Turkish conquerors--but in the absence of the Turks, they'll take it from the Albanians (the largest ethnic group among Kosovo's inhabitants) whose ancestors converted to Islam when the Turks ruled the region. Malcolm's lucid text shows again and again that the ethnic conflict in Kosovo is less a battle over bloodlines and religion than it is one over differing conceptions of national origins and history. "When ordinary Serbs learn to think more rationally and humanely about Kosovo, and more critically about some of their national myths," he concludes, "all the people of Kosovo and Serbia will benefit--not least the Serbs themselves." --Gregory McNamee --
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Kosovo: War and Revenge

	Paperback: 416 pages Publisher: Yale University Press; 2 Sub edition (October 1, 2002) Language: English ISBN-10: 0300097255 ISBN-13: 978-0300097252 Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1.3 inches Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
Book Description Tim Judah lived in Belgrade from 1990 to 1995, reporting for the London Times and the New York Review of Books; and when the "ethnic cleansing" started in Kosovo, he was there. So his Kosovo: War and Revenge is well placed to offer some insights, variously scathing and compassionate, on the whole, sorry mess. It doesn't matter how many Serbian tanks you (allegedly) knock out with your high-tech bombing raids, "since the most potent weapon in ethnic cleansing is the cigarette lighter needed to set houses on fire." And Judah can evoke the madness of Kosovo in a single, startling set piece: vengeful Albanians rampaging through a Serbian Orthodox priest's house, smashing icons, stealing candles; French soldiers from KFOR "looking on amiably"; a nearby Gypsy house also on fire; and a passing French commander explaining to an open-mouthed Judah that the official NATO policy at this moment is "to let them pillage." Paraphrasing a Belgrade journalist, he notes sadly that Serbia has still not found its Adenauer, nor Kosovo its Mandela, which is what both so desperately need. The introductory chapter, summarizing Kosovo's tortured and tortuous history, is better rendered in Noel Malcolm's Kosovo: A Short History, and for a wider overview of the Balkans themselves, one would certainly prefer Misha Glenny's The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers 1809-1999. For an acerbic and perceptive personal account, however, Judah's book is hard to beat. --Christopher Hart, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Ancient Kosova

	Paperback: 155 pages Publisher: Museum of Kosova & Ministry of Education, Science & Technology (2004) Author: Dr. Edi Shukriu Language: English ISBN: 9951-45027X
Book Description The ANCIENT KOSOVA is new and high-quality publication - the first publication of this kind on Kosova antiquity. It integrates the syntheses of prehistoric & antique developments in Kosova. The heritage of Kosova antiquity is shown based on scientific facts and common language to the readers. It includes Dardanian provenience; Dardania’s political subjectivity (political history and diplomacy, military); economic, social and cultural development; Early Christianity. The highlights of the book are the specifique and recently found archaeological monuments such as Circle Labyrinth (the year 212) & Dardanian Mortal Dance (IV-II centuries B.C.)
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