Balkan Genocides Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century [Hardcover]

Mojzes's book concerns ethnic cleansing or genocide in the Balkans three separate times in the 20th century. He bases his analysis on both primary and secondary sources, and the scope of the work as a whole is one of a region where violence built from one generation to the next. His research on the Balkan Wars (1912-13) is valuable, for while that series of conflicts has been told before, Mojzes (religious studies, Rosemont College) focuses on the killing between ethnic groups that is chilling and distinct from Great Power politics. From that point, it did not take much ignition from the Nazis to spark genocide in the region during WW II. Mojzes's discussion of the Jasenovac camps, both what the sources and the partisan politicians recount, is instructive. The author concludes with a glimpse into the genocide as Yugoslavia was breaking up, and the complexity of how to sort through such bestial killing both legally and morally. This study includes important details for scholars and students....Mojzes has written a study on which other scholars will be able to build. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.The Balkan peninsula, with its crisscrossing mountain ranges, is divided into relatively small geographic regions and equally small religious and ethnic enclaves. Whenever the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and, later, various Communist overlordships crumbled, the peoples of those divisions were free to have at each other throughout the last century. As Mojzes, a professor of religious studies at Rosemont College, indicates, the Balkans have earned bragging rights as a center of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Mojzes begins with a definition of terms, distinguishing between the often misunderstood differences between genocide and ethnic cleansing. He proceeds in a methodical, sometimes ponderous way to explain the causes and courses of these outrages while striving for fairness, since objectivity about such emotional issues may be impossible. Sl“)