Balkan Babel

In this thoroughly updated and revised edition, which includes four new chapters and a new epilogue, a veteran observer of the Yugoslav scene describes the forces that have fragmented the country. Arguing that cultural and religious values underpin political behavior, Sabrina Ramet traces the steady deterioration of Yugoslavia's social and political fabric over the past decade. This decline, she maintains, is deeply rooted in historical trauma and memory and was foreshadowed in the cultural sphere.Ramet lays the groundwork for understanding the current crisis by exploring the unfolding political debates from 1980-1986, the gathering crisis triggered by the ascent of Slobodan Milosevic to power in Serbia, and the dramatic collapse of the existing political order beginning in 1989. She ties these events to the often overlooked religious and cultural elements of society that have influenced political change. She then examines the political dynamics within Serbia and Croatia since 1991, the domestic and foreign challenges faced by independent Slovenia and Macedonia, the grinding conflict in Bosnia, and the repercussions of the war on gender relations and on cultural and religious life.With her detailed and graphic knowledge of the inescapable links between politics, culture, and religion, Ramet paints a strikingly original picture of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the emergence of the Yugoslav successor states.