Review

Author(s): Ivo Banac

Review by: Ivo Banac
Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 438-439
Published by: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2501869
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438 SlavicReview

intellectuals,ethnic minorities,dissidents,and other organized or more articulate

victimsof oppression. A book such as Vultur's is a record of realities,the importance
of whichshould not have been minimizedin the past nor should it be in the present
or even in the foreseeable future.
STrE:PHENFiSCHER-GALATI
ofColorado,Boulder
University

Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country.ByJohn R. Lampe. Cambridge: Cam-

bridge UniversityPress, 1996. xx, 421 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. Photo-
graphs.Tables. Maps. $59.95, hard bound. $19.95, paper.

JohnR. Lampe, a noted economic historianof the Balkans, has writtenan account of
Yugoslavia's history.The book is divided into eleven chapters. The firstthree (ap-
proximatelya quarter of the text) provide the account of South Slavic affairsbefore
World War I. The next three (an additional quarter) deal withthe rise and fall of the
interwarYugoslav royaliststate. Chapter 7 (31 pages) comments on the occupation
and the rise of the communistfederal state,whose storyis treatedin the subsequent
three chapters (a furtherquarter of the text). The survey ends with a chapter on
Yugoslavia's demise (31 pages). The book includes an interestingly constructedguide
to furtherreading (in English and German),twelvefinemaps thatadmittedlycontain
some unfortunateerrors,and twenty-three excellent tables.
Lampe's book has some strengths.The author is in his element when he writes
on economic history.Many of his observations,though not necessarilynew, are ap-
propriateand well woven into the narrative.Nor can one quarrel withthe architecture
of his work,which is apposite to his argument.Unfortunately,the argument itself
belongs to a curious evolutionarytypology,ratherthan to historicalargumentation,
being overwhelmedby his view thatall pre-1918developmentspoint to the rise of the
Yugoslav state(s).The agencies of the country'sdissolution seem insignificantby con-
trast.Small wonder that the weakest chapters are the firstthree and the concluding
two chapters.
Lampe makes it clear that he did not set out to writea "comprehensivehistory
of the two Yugoslavias." Instead, he wanted to "connect the unfinishedtragedyof
[Yugoslavia's]violentend withits history,more specifically,withits origins in related
but separate peoples and places beforetheFirstWorld War and the search forviability
that both state and idea pursued twice,from 1918 to 1941 and again from 1945 to
1991" (xvi). The distinctmarks of this definitioncan be found everywherein the
ahistorical"related but separate" trope.Modern situationsare transferredinto distant
history.The medieval border between eastern and westernChristianity"proceeded
fromBosnia to the coast just south of Dubrovnik" (11). Stefan Dugan's subjects,in-
cluding "Macedonians and Bulgarians" (18), "Southern Vojvodina," and "subdivided
Slovenia," (27) prance about in the eighteenthcentury.Dalmation scholar-sgo to the
Universityof Budapest in the fifteenthcentury.Rudjer Boskovic is a "Catholic Serb"
and a "physical scientist"(36).
Given the nature of the narrative,withso many anachronisms,misreadings,and
bloopers in the early chapters,this book is utterlydepressingfor a criticalspecialist.
The sense of depression is not mitigatedby Lampe's relativelygood command of
contemporary-as opposed to older-literature. But thisknowledgeis capricious. For
example,whymustwe hear the same old tales about theIllyrianProvincesifthe works
of Fran Zwitter(1964) and Drago Roksandic (1988) span a quarter of a centuryof
researchon the subject?The same can be asked of nearlyeverymajor area of contro-
versyfromthe Illyrianistmovementto Ilija Garasanin, fromJosipJuraj Strossmayer
to Prince Mihailo, not to mentionall the topics thatare entirelyleftout, especially in
Bosnian, Macedonian, Montenegrin,and Slovenian history.A catalogue of these mis-
readings,most of themconnected withLampe's need to channel all likelyeventsinto
a prehistoryof political Yugoslavism,would overwhelmthis briefreview.

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BookReviews 439

The genre of syntheticliteratureis, of course, restrictiveand affordsfew real

excursions into genuine analysis.Lampe's solution is to fill his historicalmold with
significantfacts.In thishe occasionally succeeds. It mightbe useful,therefore,forthe
benefitof future researchers,to note some of the major analytical problems that
Lampe never really addresses: (1) What was the real state of society and political
affinitiesin the South Slav provincesof Austria-Hungaryand in occupied Serbia and
Montenegro from 1915 to 1918? (2) What was King Aleksandar's political program
and under which ideological formuladid he organize the 6January dictatorship?(3)
Why did the Croat national movement of the interwarperiod develop within an
agrarianpopulistparty?(4) Whatwas therelationshipbetweenreligionand nationality
in the interwarperiod? (Lampe never even mentionssuch overwhelmingly important
developmentsas the theologyof svetosavlje, and his knowledgeof intellectual-political
trendsin Croat Catholicismis representedwiththe claim thatStepinac was a Jesuit.)
(5) What was the impact of the occupationist regimes during World War II and of
communistmobilizationon the cohesion of national societies and traditionalbelief
systems?Related problems,all of them relevantfor the process of Yugoslavia's disso-
lution,are not addressed in the sections on the communiststate.
The book is marredby a real absence of culturalhistory,which,when it appears,
serves purelydecorative purposes. Excursions outside the Serb-Croatmatrixare few
and inadequate. There is an excessive number of factual,orthographic,and spelling
errors,as well as macaronic terms(Dzemiyet!), thatcould have been correctedhad the
manuscriptbeen subjected to critical prepublication readings. In short,we have a
book thatis too factualfor a synthesisand not analyticalenough to inspire genuine
discussion.The old Cambridge Singleton was certainlysurpassed,but the problem of
syntheticliteratureprecedinglaborious archivaland textualresearchstillremainsthe
main obstacle to understandingin the fieldof Yugoslav history,whichhenceforthwill
need to focus on the period from 1918 to 1991.
Ivo BANAC
Yale University

Triumphof the Lack of Will: International Diplomacy and the Yugoslav War. ByJamesGow.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. xii, 343 pp. Notes. Index. Maps.
$29.50, hard bound.

Jaiies Gow has written an excellent study of the diplomacy of the Yugoslav wars of
1991-1995 thatwill surelyserve as a standard by which both our currentunderstand-
ing and futurehistoricalresearchon this topic (once the archivesare opened) will be
guided. His overalljudgment is implied in the title,and it is his focuson thewillingness
of the "internationalcommunity"-and above all, the United States-to use arimled
forcein supportof politicalobjectives,thatinformsthe analysisthroughout.The other
external factors-timing,judgment, and cohesion-that Gow considers as explana-
tions of (a) the descent of ex-Yugoslaviainto war,(b) the prolongationof the Bosnian
war afterthe collapse of the Vance-Owen plan in May 1993, as well as (c) the remark-
ably rapid conclusion of the Dayton peace accords in November 1995, are clearly
subordinate to a classically realist analysis of the causes of war and the sources of
peace.
Gow's book is a comprehensive case study of one of the two miostimpor-tantstories
of post-Cold War international order in Europe (the other being Russia's rielationships
with the newly indepeindent states of central Eurasia and the Baltic region). On the
basis of an exhaustive reading of the available public documents and secondary lit-
erature, as well as interviews with many of the principals involved in formulating and
executing the international diplomacy of the Yugoslav wars, Gow proceeds fiom an
explanation of the demise of Yugoslavia as a coherent state in the 1980s to a series of
careful analyses of the role that external agencies played in response: the policies of
the European Community, the United Nations, NATO, as well as those of key con-

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