Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History

I picked up Balkan Ghosts because I was interested in the subject matter, and I hadn't read anything by Robert D. Kaplan before this. It's interesting that this book was published in the "Vintage Departures" series because it might not have occurred to me that this book is a travelogue, even though Kaplan does spend much of the book on rickety trains and in decrepit hotels throughout the Balkans. So unmethodical are his travels that "travelogue" seems a misnomer. Nonetheless, Kaplan's descriptions of the Balkans just months after the fall of Communism are illuminating. At every turn, he is digging up hidden details unseen by Western eyes during the decades of communism. Through the shattered republics of Yugoslavia he travels, then on to Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Kaplan imbues the book with an impressive amount of historical context, going to great lengths to avoid the generalizations that are more typically employed to explain the seemingly perpetual strife of the Balkans. The book was published in 1995, the mid-point of a bloody decade in the Balkans, and it contains a good deal of forewarning of what was to come to pass in the region in the coming years. In this sense the book is impressive in a third way. Beyond a travelogue, beyond a regional history, Balkan Ghosts is the rare "current events" book that will not soon become obsolete.

All the reviews either love this book or hate it. Why? It tells the story of a Western in this nuthouse we call Bosnia-Hercegovina during the "troubles". It is an excellent book. Period. Does it tell the full story? Is it 100 percent fair to Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Vojvodians, Kosovars, Macedonians and Slovenes? How can it be. A war is a complex event. Remember that all, that is ALL the UN peacekeepers such as myself all thought each side was as bad as the next. Yes Serbs could be brutal, Croats mean, Moslems retaliatory.........the list goes on. But in terms of a perspective of what went on before this mans eyes? I believe it 100percent because I saw the same thing.

Kaplan weaves a masterful mix of travelogue, history and sociopolitical insight into a book about his journey through the Balkans, before Kosovo became headlines. He traveled throughout the region during the 80's and wrote stories of his adventures along the way. He uses the word idiosyncratic to describe his writing, given that his style mirrors past journalists/travelers who sought to understand the root causes of social and political behavior through the lens of history. Thus, expect a solid accounting of historical narrative for each country, coupled with a mix of contemporary thought largely begotten through his conversations with local politicians, journalists, and travelers. Criticisms: 1) His approach is fairly egotistical since he believes that few Western reporters actually capture the complexity of the region, and none, except a rare few (of which he is one), ever understand the people or their real motivations. Although his assessment of Western reporters may have elements of truth, he seems to make the point numerous times throughout the book as if to create his own air of superiority. 2) Kaplan's assessment of Greece seems to carry the most weight since he lived there for seven years, whereas he sometimes only spends days in other regions. Nevertheless, he feels obliged to draw the same broad generalizations from those areas where he spoke to relatively few people, as he does from places where he met many people and spent much time. His underlying assumption throughout the book is that only a thorough understanding of history can engender a comprehension for the present state of affairs. Thus, in the countries he frequented little, he feels a fair amount of research in history allows him to make the same prognostications as he makes in areas where he has gotten to know many people.Barring the above critiques, I enjoyed the book and found myself coming back to it until complete. He complements a firm grip of historical facts with a wonderful ability to depict people and places through metaphor and descriptive writing. Here is an example, "Greeks are married to the East. The West is our mistress only. Like any mistress, the West excites and fascinates us, but our relationship with it is episodic and superficial." His ability to characterize relationships, people and places with words is refreshing. I will definitely read more Kaplan.

One of the most tragic, yet needless, legacies of the Clinton administration is America's continued involvement in the former Yugoslavia. The bombing campaigns against Serbia represent a dark chapter in American history. As Patrick Buchanan recently wrote, "This small nation did not attack us, did not threaten us, did not seek war with us. Yet, we smashed Serbia as horribly as Hitler had, for defying our demand for an unrestricted right of passage through their land, to tear off the cradle of their country, Kosovo."Prior to the military actions, Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, and Kosovo were as familiar to most Americans as the dark side of the moon. George Bush, as a candidate for President, inadvertently summed up American ignorance when he confused Slovenia with Slovakia. Yet when the Clinton administration decided to wreck havoc on these ancient countries, few reasoned proposals were put forward, little debate was offered in Congress, and no historical perspectives were provided by the media. Instead, the great simplifiers labeled the opposing sides with white hats and black hats. The Serbs were "bad" and the Bosnian Muslims and Albanians "good." There was no room for gray. Was this the whole truth? Are the conflicts and protagonists in the Balkans so easily classified into the moral code understood by most Americans? In Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, reporter Robert D. Kaplan explored the incredibly complex mosaic of Balkan politics, intrigue, and ethnic warfare. Published in 1993, years before the first bombs were delivered by the U. S. Air Force, Kaplan showed that while good and evil certainly existed in the Balkans, the conflicting claims and tangled histories of the various parties made outside intervention by meddling outsiders a very risky proposition. Written in part as a homage to Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon and John Reed's The War in Eastern Europe, Balkan Ghosts is part travelogue, part historical analysis, and part polemic. Having lived in the Balkans for several years and traveled extensively in its "backwater" countries, Kaplan combines an extensive knowledge of the region with a clear and forceful narrative style. His brief description of his trip down the Danube to the impoverished town of Sfintu Gheorghe, for instance, better illustrates the hopelessness inherent in Romanian communism than volumes of comparative economic statistics and diplomatic wires. The reader can almost taste the plum brandy, see the peeling paint, and smell the cigarettes and unwashed bodies.Several key dynamics influenced the course of recent Balkan history. The first is the legacy of centuries of savage Islamic rule under the Ottoman Turks, a veritable Dark Age that was only erased from the overwhelmingly Christian populations of the Balkans in the first decades of the twentieth century. Appended as a monstrous coda to this period was the communist domination of much of the peninsula after World War II, which incre

"Balkan Ghosts" is politics, it is history, it is a travel guide. A beautiful descriptive prose, with no ambition for political analysis. Robert Kaplan brings out the typical character in every Balkan nation and society, and writes about the things that innocently clung to the back of his western-world mind and eyes, while travelling through the region. Through his encounters and visions, he manages to show much irony, yet in a respectful manner; it is the freshness and simplicity in his young view that allow an incisive report on old tradition. Kaplan visited tha farther corners of Romania, where Romanians do not go, and he tells about the Jews in Salonika, something Greeks do not talk about. A book that could have only been written by someone who knew the people, and lived by their sides. The result is an excellent journey through fascinating stories, about an exciting part of the world. A must-read for everyone who's been in the Balkans, wants to go, or seeks to understand the developments that took place during the 90's.