The Balkans, 1804–2012

In this celebrated, landmark history of the Balkans, Misha Glenny investigates the roots of the bloodshed, invasions and nationalist fervour that have come to define our understanding of the south-eastern edge of Europe. In doing so, he reveals that groups we think of as implacable enemies have, over the centuries, formed unlikely alliances, thereby disputing the idea that conflict in the Balkans is the ineluctable product of ancient grudges. And he exposes the often-catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the rest of Europe, raising profound questions about recent Western intervention.

Updated to cover the last decade's brutal conflicts in Kosovo and Macedonia, the surge of organised crime in the region, the rise of Turkey and the rocky road to EU membership, The Balkans remains the essential and peerless study of Europe's most complex and least understood region.

An endeavour which deserves extraordinary admiration and as yet has no rival Guardian
A great achievement -- Timothy Garton Ash
Misha Glenny is the wisest and most reflective of all the Western journalists who have covered this part of Europe in the past two decades... This was an enormously ambitious book to undertake, but it is the book which Europe and America need Observer
Sweeping, fair-minded and authoritative...admirably full of uncomfortable messages for nationalist historians Economist
His engaging passion never clouds his objective eye...Above all the book is justified by the insights which add up to a convincing picture of the problems Sunday Times
Compelling reading...Glenny's book should be required reading for all those wishing to know what has gone wrong in the region Irish Times
Its great strengths are evocation, fascinating detail and narrative sweep...a great achievement The Mail on Sunday
His achievement is immense, a mix of great intellect, real humanity and intense passion. His mission is to explain, and his book will surely become an essential read for anyone who wants to understand the Balkans rather then just have an opinion about the region The Scotsman
It is the merit of Misha Glenny's book, and its usefulness for dispelling our ignorance, that patronising distortions of the region's history are swept away Spectator

Misha Glenny was born in 1958 and educated at Bristol University and Charles University in Prague. His coverage of the fall of communism in 1989-90 was widely acclaimed. During the Yugoslavia crisis of the early 1990s he was Central Europe correspondent for the BBC World Service. In 1993 he won a Sony Award for his coverage of Yugoslavia. Glenny speaks German, Czech and Serbo-Croat and has lived and worked all over the Balkans. His books include DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You and the highly praised McMafia, 'one of the essential non-fiction works of our time', which has been adapted as a major BBC 1 drama for 2018.

In this celebrated, landmark history of the Balkans, Misha Glenny investigates the roots of the bloodshed, invasions and nationalist fervour that have come to define our understanding of the south-eastern edge of Europe. In doing so, he reveals that groups we think of as implacable enemies have, over the centuries, formed unlikely alliances, thereby disputing the idea that conflict in the Balkans is the ineluctable product of ancient grudges. And he exposes the often-catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the rest of Europe, raising profound questions about recent Western intervention. Updated to cover the last decade's brutal conflicts in Kosovo and Macedonia, the surge of organised crime in the region, the rise of Turkey and the rocky road to EU membership, The Balkans remains the essential and peerless study of Europe's most complex and least understood region.

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