The Balkans: A Short History (Mark Mazower)

In The Balkans: A Short History, Mark Mazower covers the history of the Balkans (the region in southeast Europe shown below) in just 156 pages.  He looks at the land and its inhabitants, its time in the Ottoman Empire (almost 500 years, from the fifteenth century to the twentieth), the World War years, to the present (2000).  He argues that, contrary to Western opinion, the region is not as violent or backward as many believe.  In fact, this religiously and ethnically diverse area enjoyed relative peace and coexistence under Ottoman rule until the nationalistic movements on the rest of the continent in the twentieth century stoked tensions and ultimately led to multiple wars.

image from here

Overall, I liked this.  Mazower writes well, he seems fair to both sides of contested histories, and I love brevity.  This one is almost too short, though, and more focused on dispelling popular misconceptions about the people than delivering a history of them; I'm going to look at a longer treatment.

Rating: B+