Horrors of War: Historical Reality and Philosophy

by Franjo Tudjman, Katarina Mijatovic (Translator)

Overview

Franjo Tudjman combines his experience in war-torn Yugoslavia with his knowledge of history, philosophy and literature to convey the persistence of violence over time. A political memoir and historical philosophical survey, this book provides a candid insight into the mind of one of the most important statesmen in contemporary European history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590775028
Publisher:	M. Evans & Company
Publication date:	01/15/1996
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Franjo Tudjman served as President of Croatia from the nation's independence from Yugoslavia in 1990 until his death in 1999. A military general, historian, professor, and writer as well as a politician, Tudjman wrote numerous books and treatises in his lifetime, including Nationalism in Contemporary Europe, Croatia at the Crossroads: In Search of a Democratic Confederacy, and Believing in Croatia's Independence.

Table of Contents

Editor's Note Introduction Part I: History and Life's Destiny Part II: History as Crime and Mythical Appearance Part III: Philosophical and Historical Evil Part IV: Historical Fact and Unscientific Theories Notes

Editorial Reviews

Tudjman is the president of the Republic of Croatia. He is also an exemplary Balkan political intellectual. In the Balkans, the intelligentsia have been largely responsible for a version of nationalism that combines political with cultural-linguistic factors, which they sought to implementby whatever means necessary. This book (foreign editions of which have existed since 1989) purports to analyze the history and politics of ethnic violence in European history from Rome to the present. That material is mostly boiler plate and window dressing. The book's real focus is on what Tudjman describes as the scapegoating, by the former Yugoslav government, of Croatia as an artificial nationality irreversibly tainted by its collaboration with Nazi Germany and the accompanying massacres of Jews and Serbs. Tudjman insists that Croatian anti-fascism was as intense as any in Europea debatable point. He marshals data to show that while the crimes of the wartime Ustasha government cannot be denied, they must be contextualized. But in fact few Balkan hands were clean between 1941 and 1945. Tudjman's conclusion that insistence on remembering past grievances can only sustain a cycle of revenge has merit. His argument, however, would be more convincing had Croatia not sought to balance its perceived accounts with Serbs and Muslims with such unrestrained enthusiasmand had Tudjman not led the pack. Morally and intellectually, this book ranks somewhere between O.J. Simpson's I Want to Tell You and Sammy Gravano's Underboss, and seems to draw inspiration from Lewis Carroll's Wonderland queen, who asserted that when she used a fact it meant only what she wanted it to mean. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly