1. Youth of hardship, lands of lore; 2. Sacrificial founder; 3. Naïve nationalist; 4. Milošević's willing disciple; 5. The autumn of Radovan's rage; 6. Visionary planner; 7. Euroskeptic; 8. Imperious Serb unifier; 9. Triumphant conspirator; 10. Strategic multitasker; 11. Callous perpetrator; 12. Duplicitous diplomat; 13. Host in solitude; 14. Architect of genocide; 15. Falling star; 16. Resourceful fugitive; 17. Radovan Karadžić and the Bosnian War.
This book traces Radovan Karadžić's personal transformation from an unremarkable family man to the powerful leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists.
Robert J. Donia has been visiting and writing about the former Yugoslavia since 1965. He has authored three books and written numerous articles about the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina and has taught courses on human rights and the former Yugoslavia as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan. As an expert historical witness, he has provided testimony at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague in the trials of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević and former Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić and twelve other trials.
'Radovan Karadžić's prominence as the architect of a bitter war
that took over one hundred thousand lives, most of them civilians,
and Karadžić's mercurial and flamboyant personality, make him a
compelling subject of a biography. This powerful account by Dr
Robert J. Donia does what any excellent biography of a political
figure ought to do, and that is to tell a larger story through the
prism of one key actor. This book is about much more than Radovan
Karadžić: it is about the powder-keg of Balkans nationalism, the
particular historical moment after the end of the Cold War, and the
ineffectiveness of international diplomacy. In charting the rise
and fall of Karadžić, Donia recounts an eternal story about the
populist demagogue who sweeps to power through his tremendous
charisma and intellectual ability and is then undone by his own
megalomania and self-inflicted injuries. A completely gripping
read.' Richard Ashby Wilson, University of Connecticut and author
of Writing History in International Criminal Trials
'Robert Donia, one of our most esteemed experts on the history of
Yugoslavia, has written a remarkably detailed and lively biography
of Radovan Karadžić, former President of the Bosnian Serb Republic
and the man most responsible for the Srebrenica genocide. Using
secret documents and telephone intercepts gathered by the
prosecutors in the Hague - as well as drawing from his own
interchanges with Karadžić while serving as an expert witness -
Donia has artfully captured the complexity, the political acumen,
and the sheer evil of this crucial architect of the war in Bosnia.'
Norman M. Naimark, Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East
European Studies, Stanford University
'Robert Donia's biography traces the life of Radovan Karadžić,
leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists during the Bosnian War
(1992–95), from peasant origins to one of the 20th century's most
wanted war criminals. Eschewing simple categorization of Karadžić
as either evil madman or rational mastermind, Donia draws upon
newly-available primary source materials, including transcripts of
the Bosnian Serb Assembly and intercepted telephone conversations,
to produce a page-turning study of the genocide's chief architect.
He shows how Karadžić seized opportunities, honed his strategies
and sparred with opponents on both the domestic and international
stage. This book will soon become a classic work on the Bosnian war
that claimed more than 100,000 lives and joins the best scholarship
on history's most notorious leaders.' Lara J. Nettelfield, Royal
Holloway, University of London, coauthor of Srebrenica in the
Aftermath of Genocide and author of Courting Democracy in Bosnia
and Herzegovina: The Hague Tribunal's Impact in a Postwar State
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