With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia

Wow. I finished this book several weeks ago and, although I do not usually write reviews, I was moved to do so for this book. This is the first book I have read by this author and I look forward to reading more of her work. DISCLAIMER: I was very skeptical what I would learn from yet another book about the Balkans and the current life struggles of its peoples. My family emigrated to the U.S. from this area and, although my 'clan' left 100+ years ago, most of our extended family stayed and we have remained in contact with them and have visited the area several times over the years (most recently in Fall 2008). I also have taught ESL to dozens of Balkan refugees of each nationality and religion, and have many 2nd and 3rd generation, and recent refugee, Balkan-American friends. On my family's Fall 2008 trip we toured several former-Yugoslav republics with our family who lives in the region. We were surprised by what we saw and heard from and about the Serbs and the Bosnian Serbs. I was extremely impressed with the author's insight into Serbian culture, and the past and current worldview of Serbs from diverse walks of life. Her selection of folks from various walks of life could hardly be improved. I found her treatment of Serbian prejudices (and other far less intense attitudes) toward other Balkan peoples, the rest of the world, the West in particular, and most particularly AMERICANS deadly accurate. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this tremendously well-written and frighteningly accurate portrayal of present-day Serbs and their attitudes to anyone interested in understanding, or struggling with understanding, the hows and whys of this extremely difficult Balkan group. Its contents illuminate all too well how (and why it is) extremely unlikely true Serb integration into Europe, the West and the first world will be in the decades to come. This book would be EXCELLENT READING MATERIAL for an advanced undergraduate course, or GRADUATE COURSE on East Central Europe, international relations, diplomacy or anthropology. A powerful, insightful, very well-presented read.

I would recommend this book to anyone who would like more insight into the conflict in the Balkans. Being of Serbian/Croation/Czech descent, I spent my childhood years (in the 50s and 60s) listening to tales of "Yugoslavia" from my grandparents. Reading this book took me back to those days and also gave me an insight into what has happened to the country since then from the viewpoint of "average" people in Serbia. The bottomline is: all people are really the same; they want to contribute, they want to raise families and all are at the mercy of their governments who many times make decisions that affect the people in a negative way. Read it and you'll see yourselves no matter where you're from.

I very much enjoyed this book. The author covers individual serbs. She displays a deep effection for the people of Serbia. The book profiles by chapter ordinary people and politicians and journalists. I thought the author did a good job of covering a wide collection of perspectives, a Titoist, a follower of Milosovich, a democratic reformer, a wheeler/dealer/con man, a journalist. I thougth the portrait of the rock singer was the most engaging. Very nice read and I thought presented a human face to a country that in the west is vastly misunderstood.