|
|
Virtual Macedonia Bookstore - Croatia: A History
|
List Price: $22.95
Our Price: $20.65
Your Save: $ 2.30 ( 10% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: McGill-Queen's University Press
|
Average Customer Rating:   
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 949.72
EAN: 9780773520172
ISBN: 0773520171
Label: McGill-Queen's University Press
Manufacturer: McGill-Queen's University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 281
Publication Date: 2000-01
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Studio: McGill-Queen's University Press
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Croatian's History of Croatia
Comment:
Ivo Goldstein's Croatia, A History, traces the evolution of modern day Croatia and its people, religions and cultures from antiquity. Today, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Croatia remains surrounded by Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Montenegro. Over the centuries, there have been many changes in area names and ownership, which the author traces with care.
This book about Croatia was authored by a Croatian in the Croatian language - which lens a certain degree of apparent accuracy. However, a bit of the elegance of the Croatian language was inescapably lost in the translation to English, making the rating of the book three stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Please...
Comment: I was amazed that a mass market book like this would really expect me to swallow some of these nationalist whoppers. This book is fairly well written, and accurate up to a point, but whenever something good happens, it's the Croats. When something bad happens it's a brief paragraph blaming the Germans, or the Serbs, or the Hungarians. Ivo and Nikolina gloss over Croatia's shameful history during World War Two and have it play the victim in the Bosnian War. Take with a chunk of salt. Still, this isn't just a propaganda piece, and if you paired it with Noel Malcom's "Bosnia" and an informed and sympathetic work on Serbia, you could average them out to something good.
Customer Rating:
Summary: As balanced as can be
Comment: I was glad to read this book and given the negative comments from (unsurpisingly) a Croatian reviewer, I can see why Croats and Serbs never get along. Rarely do I meet Croats or Serbs who go beyond being apologists for their respective nations when talking about Serbo-Croatian relations.
Goldstein, however, examines Croatian history quite fairly for the most part and more to the point doesn't fall into the trap of placing Croats on a higher plane than neighbouring Serbs. It is satifying to read something by a historian who doesn't sink to the level of a chauvanist as many intellectuals from the Balkans do.
His chapter on Croatia's meddling/warring in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 is illuminating and reminds me that most Croats hardly deserve the "angels' halos" that they still crave when trying to "discuss" (read: justify) their conduct towards their neighbours. In addition, it is indeed refreshing to see that Goldstein pulls no punches in presenting less attractive aspects of President Tudjman's rule in spite of Tudjman's suitability in countering the aggresive nationalism emnating from President Milosevic's office in Belgrade.
Nevertheless, I agree with the reviewer who dislikes the dominance of coverage about the 20th century. Goldstein doesn't go into as much detail about the earlier periods which forced me to consult books about Hungarian, Ottoman or Venetian history when I wanted to get some more information about Croatian history during the Middle Ages and Renaissance (when Croats were ruled by those powers).
Bottom line: This book is as good as it gets for Croatian history for now. It's too bad that I haven't come across a similar work on Serbian history. Like the Croats, I'm sure that the Serbs are unjustified in trying to portray themselves as eternal victims who must take revenge for past defeats and real/imagined injustices. Goldstein's work should be a good kick-in-the-rear for qualified Croatian and Serbian historians to be brave enough not to let their thinking be coloured by prejudices about Croatian impudence or Serbian aggresion. They must begin crowding out the field of Croatian and Serbian historigraphy which is currently littered with works by journalists and other non-historians whose works provide fodder for propagandists and chauvanists.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Imbalanced and subjective
Comment: This book devoted half of its content to events between 1941 and 1999. Pre-modern history of Croatia is very superficial dealt with. Modern history is biased revealing too often personal stand of the author. Although the author is not a Croatian nationalist his description of some events is unacceptable for objective historian. For example, he calls Operation Storm as "liberation operation" not explaining how can liberation results in the flight of population before the army that "liberated" some area. His critical description of Tudjman's government is also a reflection of his personal political views and not an objective assessment of historian.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Difficult...
Comment: I purchased this book based on customer reviews posted at that time. Some of the reviews were posted by Croatian scholars and they were very positive. I was under the impression that I would be provided with an unbiased history of Croatia and its conflicts. The reviews also indicated that the book would highlight only the most significant historical details. This book may be a relatively unbiased account and I will assume that the details covered only the most significant events, however the presentation of this information was extremely difficult to follow. The book includes very few summary paragraphs to introduce broad historical movements and their impact before diving into often exceptionally detailed accounts of specific incidents. There was rarely an adequate summary or closure to a chapter. Some of the most important events were somewhat hidden and de-emphasized. No brief descriptions of significant historical figures and their impact were included. Their names were only briefly mentioned in connection to a specific event, then these figures were sometimes discussed later in the text as being important. IN addition, the order of events was not consistently chronological. More maps with greater detail would have given some of the additional guidance I had expected. A reader more familiar with the region and some of the historical figures, the geography, etc., may have been much more satisfied with this book. I do not recommend it as an introduction to the country and its development.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
