Milosevic
A Biography
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
The first authoritative biography of Slobodan Milosevic
Slobodan Milosevic died in 2006 in his prison cell in The Hague, putting a premature end to his trial for war crimes during the Yugoslav Wars.
Adam LeBor, a critically acclaimed author and journalist who covered the Yugoslav Wars for the Independent and the Times, documents the life of a man whose policies instigated four wars, who skilfully exploited the most modern techniques of media management to whip up a nationalist frenzy, and under whose rule bloody campaigns of ethnic cleansing systematically destroyed a once sophisticated multi-ethnic country, and yet who retained for a decade the ability to wrap the 'international community' round his little finger.
It gives the inside story of Milosevic's childhood, his marriage to Mira (who gave him an entrée into the highest circles of Yugoslavia's political elite), his rise to power, the looted money (estimated at some $30 billion), the ascendancy of crime over politics (personified in his son Marko's enterprises), his relationships with key figures like Radovan Karadzic and Franjo Tujman, not to mention the many western diplomats, politicians and businessmen with whom he dealt for more than 10 years, and finally the story of his fall from power.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Drawing on pithy interviews with key players, LeBor (Hitler's Secret Bankers), who covered the Yugoslav wars for the Independent and the London Times, traces Milosevic's rise from a provincial childhood to leader of the Serbian Communist Party and then the Serbian presidency. LeBor absorbingly details Milosevic's self-serving strategizing in the independence movements in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia; his manipulation of Serb nationalist fervor; and his shadowy network of agents and gangsters. Firsthand interviews with Milosevic's wife and collaborator, Mira Markovic, allow LeBor to infuse his account of the Milosevic-Markovic "personal para-state" with insights into the couple's oddly contradictory ideological stances. He depicts their insular family life with obvious distaste for their seeming indifference to the tragic events around them. LeBor presents the West's attempts to abate war in the region as dynamic, if at times misguided; following his account of the peace accords negotiated at Dayton, Ohio, where Milosevic was an honored guest, he soberly remarks that between "statesman or war criminal," finally, "much of the difference, it seems, is in the eye of the beholder." Milosevic's involvement in ethnic cleansing emerges even more explicitly in the endgame of his rule, as Serbia battles the Kosovo Liberation Army. An afterword delivers further proof of Milosevic's guilt from his ongoing trial for genocide at the Hague. This disciplined, dispassionate portrait focuses on the actions of "an autocrat motivated by power." It does not attempt psychological speculation or a more theorized portrait. Highly readable, yet savvy about regionally specific realpolitik, this political biography will greatly enhance the lay reader's understanding of recent events in Yugoslavia. Illus. not seen by PW; maps.
