A History of Yugoslavia


Book Description

Why did Yugoslavia fall apart? Was its violent demise inevitable? Did its population simply fall victim to the lure of nationalism? How did this multinational state survive for so long, and where do we situate the short life of Yugoslavia in the long history of Europe in the twentieth century? A History of Yugoslavia provides a concise, accessible, comprehensive synthesis of the political, cultural, social, and economic life of Yugoslavia—from its nineteenth-century South Slavic origins to the bloody demise of the multinational state of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Calic takes a fresh and innovative look at the colorful, multifaceted, and complex history of Yugoslavia, emphasizing major social, economic, and intellectual changes from the turn of the twentieth century and the transition to modern industrialized mass society. She traces the origins of ethnic, religious, and cultural divisions, applying the latest social science approaches, and drawing on the breadth of recent state-of-the-art literature, to present a balanced interpretation of events that takes into account the differing perceptions and interests of the actors involved. Uniquely, Calic frames the history of Yugoslavia for readers as an essentially open-ended process, undertaken from a variety of different regional perspectives with varied composite agenda. She shuns traditional, deterministic explanations that notorious Balkan hatreds or any other kind of exceptionalism are to blame for Yugoslavia’s demise, and along the way she highlights the agency of twentieth-century modern mass society in the politicization of differences. While analyzing nuanced political and social-economic processes, Calic describes the experiences and emotions of ordinary people in a vivid way. As a result, her groundbreaking work provides scholars and learned readers alike with an accessible, trenchant, and authoritative introduction to Yugoslavia's complex history.







Investing in Yugoslavia


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Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War


Book Description

This book provides a comprehensive insight into one of the key episodes of the Cold War – the process of reconciliation between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. At the time, this process had shocked the World as much as the violent break-up of their relations did in 1948. This book provides an explanation for the collapse of the process of normalization of Yugoslav-Soviet that occurred at the end of 1956 and the renewal of their ideological confrontation. It also explain the motives that guided the two main protagonists, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and the Soviet leader Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Based on Yugoslav and Soviet archival documents, this book establishes several innovative theories about this period. Firstly, that the significance of the Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation went beyond their bilateral relationship. It had ramifications for relations in the Eastern Bloc, the global Communist movement, and on the dynamics of the Cold War world at its crucial juncture. Secondly, that the Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation brought forward the process of de-Stalinization in the USSR and in the Peoples’ Democracies. Thirdly, it enabled Khrushchev to win the post-Stalin leadership contest. Lastly, the book argues that the process of Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation permitted Tito to embark, together with Nehru of India and Nasser of Egypt upon creating the new entity in the bi-polar Cold War world – the Non-aligned movement. This book will be of interest to students of Cold War History, diplomatic history, European history and International Relations in general. Svetozar Rajak is a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the Managing Director of the LSE Cold War Studies Centre and is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Cold War History.




Yugoslav-American Economic Relations Since World War II


Book Description

Yugoslav-American Economic Relations Since World War II provides a comprehensive study of the economic relations between the United States and Yugoslavia over the past four decades. The authors recount how Yugoslavia and the United States, despite great differences in size, wealth, and ideology, overcame early misunderstandings and confrontations to create a generally positive economic relationship based on mutual respect. The Yugoslav experience demonstrated, the authors maintain, that existence outside the bloc was possible, profitable, and nonthreatening to the Soviet Union. The authors describe American official and private support for Yugoslavia's decades-long efforts at economic reform that included the first foreign investment legislation in 1967 and the first introduction of convertible currency in 1990 for any communist country. Also examined are the origins of Yugoslavia's international debt crisis of the early 1980s and the American role in the highly complex multibillion-dollar international effort that helped Yugoslavia surmount that crisis. In the past, U.S. support for the Yugoslav economy was proffered in part, the authors claim, to counter perceived threats from the Soviet Union and its allies. This may have enabled Yugoslavia to avoid some of the hard but necessary economic policy choices; hence, future U.S. support, the book concludes, will likely be tied more closely to the economic and political soundness of Yugoslavia's own actions.