A History of Yugoslavia

Marie-Janine Calic

• Publisher: Purdue University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781557538383
• eBook ISBN: 9781612495644
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

Why did Yugoslavia fall apart? Was its violent demise inevitable? Did its population simply fall victim to the lure of nationalism? How did this multinational state survive for so long, and where do we situate the short life of Yugoslavia in the long history of Europe in the twentieth century? A History of Yugoslavia provides a concise, accessible, comprehensive synthesis of the political, cultural, social, and economic life of Yugoslavia—from its nineteenth-century South Slavic origins to the bloody demise of the multinational state of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Calic takes a fresh and innovative look at the colorful, multifaceted, and complex history of Yugoslavia, emphasizing major social, economic, and intellectual changes from the turn of the twentieth century and the transition to modern industrialized mass society. She traces the origins of ethnic, religious, and cultural divisions, applying the latest social science approaches, and drawing on the breadth of recent state-of-the-art literature, to present a balanced interpretation of events that takes into account the differing perceptions and interests of the actors involved. Uniquely, Calic frames the history of Yugoslavia for readers as an essentially open-ended process, undertaken from a variety of different regional perspectives with varied composite agenda. She shuns traditional, deterministic explanations that notorious Balkan hatreds or any other kind of exceptionalism are to blame for Yugoslavia's demise, and along the way she highlights the agency of twentieth-century modern mass society in the politicization of differences. While analyzing nuanced political and social-economic processes, Calic describes the experiences and emotions of ordinary people in a vivid way. As a result, her groundbreaking work provides scholars and learned readers alike with an accessible, trenchant, and authoritative introduction to Yugoslavia's complex history.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Maps
• List of Tables
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Chronology
• Part I: The South Slavic Movement and the Founding of the Yugoslav State (1878 to 1918)
• Part II: The First Yugoslavia (1918 to 1941)
• Part III: The Second World War (1941 to 1945)
• Part IV: Socialist Yugoslavia (1945 to 1980)
• Part V: After Tito (1980 to 1991)
• Part VI: The Demise of Yugoslavia (1991 to the Present)
• Concluding Remarks
• Appendix A: Parties, Political Organizations, and Committees
• Appendix B: Maps
• Appendix C: Tables
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index of Persons