Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Foreword / William Jefferson Clinton xi
Preface xv
Context
The Balkans xxviii
Key Players xxxiii
Introduction 1
I. Madness 7
1. Hell Breaks Loose 15
2. Love in the Crucible 59
3. Reasons for the War 73
4. The Lie of Intractable Hatred 95
II. To Heal History 115
5. Challenges 119
6. Women Transforming 137
7. The Road to Reconciliation 169
Epilogue: The Courage to Hope 191
Profiles 197
Closing Thoughts 251
Acknowledgments 259
Notes 263
Bibliography 291
Index 297

Promotional Information

Combines Bosnian women's personal testimony about the recent war and its aftermath with Ambassador Hunt's analysis of the U.S. government's appproach to the conflict

About the Author

Swanee Hunt chairs the Washington-based Institute for Inclusive Security. During her tenure as U.S. ambassador to Austria (1993–97), she hosted negotiations and symposia focused on securing the peace in the neighboring Balkan states. She is a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, the president of Hunt Alternatives Fund, and the author of Worlds Apart: Bosnian Lessons for Global Security and Half-Life of a Zealot, both also published by Duke University Press.

Reviews

"I met Swanee Hunt as a diplomat in Vienna. I worked beside her as an activist in the Balkans. Now I know her as a writer, addressing a world sorely in need of her message of challenge and hope. Her words resonate with the authenticity of an observer and advocate who has devoted not only attention, time, and position, but also soul."--Queen Noor of Jordan, humanitarian activist for world peace and justice, and best-selling author of Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life "Here is history watched in its unfolding, then put on record. Women tell an astute listener what they saw, read, and remember even as their careful witness--at once an eloquent and tragic story--is enabled by the knowing attention of a seasoned diplomat and psychologist, who gives her readers, with this book, a landmark of documentary inquiry: poignant voices, memories, tales of sadness and yearning--in their sum an important bearing of witness, thoughtfully and sensitively assembled, sent our way. This effort advances the kind of history Tolstoy urged be written--a narration of on-the-scene individuals rendered by one herself very much willing to be respectfully among them."--Robert Coles, James Agee Professor of Social Ethics and Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities, Harvard University "Replacing tyranny with justice, healing deep scars, exchanging hatred for hope ... the women in This Was Not Our War teach us how."--William Jefferson Clinton "Hunt, who"Replacing tyranny with justice, healing deep scars, exchanging hatred for hope ... the women in This Was Not Our War teach us how."--William Jefferson Clinton was President Clinton's ambassador to Austria, has put together interviews with 26 Bosnian women. They come from different backgrounds but share an emotional strength and a generosity of spirit, a dignity and humanity, that together make the case for a greater role for women in the politics of their societies--and make the rest of the world's hesitancy to intervene to defend human rights in Bosnia very hard to justify."--Stanley Hoffmann, Foreign Affairs "Swanee Hunt is a diplomat, human rights advocate, and teacher. With This Was Not Our War she shows she is also a gifted listener and writer. In these pages, Hunt captures the rationales and rationalizations for war as well as the despair and stirring dignity of twenty-six women who lived through the Bosnian horrors. Hunt lets the women speak for themselves, telling the story of Bosnia's descent and recovery their way, and, in so doing, she shows just how vital their voices, insights, and talents will be in rebuilding Bosnia and its shattered lives."--Samantha Power, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide