About the Author

Noel Malcolm is a writer, historian and journalist. A former Foreign Editor of the Spectator and columnist for the Daily Telegraph, he gave up journalism in 1995 to become a full-time writer, becoming in 2002 a Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Reviews

'A quite brilliant piece of historical record-straightening...Everyone who wishes to have an opinion about Bosnia must read this book.' Niall Ferguson, Daily Mail 'Clear-sighted, authoritative and eloquent.' Dimitri Obolensky, Times Literary Supplement 'A Triumph of clarity, learning and balance.' Adrian Hastings, New Statesman and Society 'Excellent.' Paddy Ashdown, Sunday Times 'This is a splendid work of synthesis on a very complex subject, written with insight and sympathy: the best, indeed the only, informed book on a history that has become both topical and tragic.' Hugh Trevor-Roper, Sunday Telegraph 'A marvellous book, a work of great scholarship.' Margaret Thatcher

'A quite brilliant piece of historical record-straightening...Everyone who wishes to have an opinion about Bosnia must read this book.' Niall Ferguson, Daily Mail 'Clear-sighted, authoritative and eloquent.' Dimitri Obolensky, Times Literary Supplement 'A Triumph of clarity, learning and balance.' Adrian Hastings, New Statesman and Society 'Excellent.' Paddy Ashdown, Sunday Times 'This is a splendid work of synthesis on a very complex subject, written with insight and sympathy: the best, indeed the only, informed book on a history that has become both topical and tragic.' Hugh Trevor-Roper, Sunday Telegraph 'A marvellous book, a work of great scholarship.' Margaret Thatcher

To explain the origins of the current conflict in Bosnia, Malcolm reaches back to Turkish occupation, Austro-Hungarian rule, both world wars and the era of Stalinist oppression under Toti. He contends that ``ethnic cleansing'' is not a by-product of the current war but a central element in the Serbian goal of creating homogeneous Serb enclaves that eventually will join together in a Greater Serbia. Malcolm condemns Western interference, singling out politicians and diplomats who attempt to suppress the war's symptoms instead of treating its causes. He argues persuasively that the United Nations-imposed arms embargo against Bosnia opened the way to that nation's destruction, and that the vaunted Vance-Owen peace plan was only slightly less disastrous. It led to a genuine Bosnian civil war, ruining the only effective barrier against the Serbs, the Croat-Muslim alliance. Political columnist for London's Daily Spectator, Malcolm has covered the Balkans for 15 years. (Sept.)