The Yugoslavs

I am an american living in Slovneia for the last 5 years. I read many books about the history of Yugoslavia because the reamins still affect the culture today. The Yugoslavs is an excellent portrail of Yugoslavia-- the magic, the tensions, and the contradictions during the early to mid 1970s. Tito was still alive. Ethnic tensions were showing, but war crimes were not yet even conceivable. Self management, Loans from the west, and Guest workers bringing back hard currency represent a real highlight of the "3rd way"/non-aligned movement driven by tito. The book is well written, factual, unbiased, detailed, and yet everthing has an emotional quality. This book and the Tito biography by Richard West (limited overlap between the books, so I recommend both) are my favorites to date.

An excellent close-up look at the Yugoslavs before the collapse and before Tito's death. The author was born in Yugoslavia, grew up abroad, then returned as a newspaper correspondent. The book is particularly insightful because Doder was able to write about the very real fissures in Yugoslav society before it became politically incorrect to do so.