Dispatches from the Balkan War and Other Writings is a collection of essays on the Balkan crisis and on European reaction to it. In opposition to many powerful figures in France, Alain Finkielkraut has largely supported the Croatian struggles for sovereignty. He argues against an array of outmoded views of the Balkan region and its political and cultural conditions—conceptions that date back to earlier in the century and that have long bedeviled the region and the European powers’ relation to it. The book takes up larger issues about European political and intellectual history—issues that are in urgent need of reexamination and revision in the post-Cold War world.

 

A timely and passionate book, this volume will be of great interest to Finkielkraut’s many admirers as well as to anyone interested in the ongoing Balkan crisis and modern European history.

Alain Finkielkraut is one of the most celebrated and controversial intellectuals in contemporary Europe. A staunch defender of liberal intellectual and political traditions, he is both a fiery polemicist and a skillful analyst of intellectual trends and histories. Peter S. Rogers is an associate professor of French at Loyola University New Orleans. He is the author of Proust: Speculative Scripture. Richard Golsan is a professor of French at Texas A&M University. He is the author or editor of several books, including Fascism’s Return (Nebraska 1997).

2000 Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award in Translation, sponsored by the Texas Institute of Letters, finalist