The war in the former Yugoslavia has shamed the leading nations of the world. Unspeakable crimes against humanity have been committed in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, yet American and European policymakers have cravenly stood aside while whole villages and communities were erased from the face of the earth.Americans are appalled by the images on their television screens of the carnage, but most of us are confused. What are the issues that have brought this conflict to a head? How can it be that fifty years after the Nazi Holocaust, the civilized world is once again unable to stem a tide of atrocities that include concentration camps and civilian massacres?One of the few consistent voices raised against aggression and genocide in the Balkans has been that of The New Republic. The Black Book of Bosnia brings together the magazine's best analysis, reportage, commentary, and editorials to explain how the war came to pass and what it portends for America, the West and the world.The essays in this volume offer a road map through the tangled history of the Balkans, along with vivid on-the-scene reports that reveal the bloody aftermath in our own time. And the magazine's editorials, written throughout the course of the war, themselves tell a story of missed opportunities and moral abdication. Future generations will see Bosnia as the first test of the post-Cold War international order, and this book reveals how and why the West failed the test.
