Kosovo: A Short History [Paperback]

I was not sure whether to give Malcolm's book a 3 or 4 stars but because it is such a well-researched book, I decided to give it 4, although I would probably agree with the overall rating for his book so far- 3 and a half.

As there is so much to say about his book, this will be a thorough review.

First of all, Malcolm has clearly gone out of his way to write the most extensive book on Kosovo's history of any Western historian. I disagree with the notion that he simply wrote this book to earn some money because the time, help and resources he would have required travelling around Europe to various national libraries, looking through archives from hundreds of years back, asking people for their opinions etc must have been at great financial, as well psychological, cost to himself.

Saying that however, one can see that he visited the Zagreb national library and the library in Tirana but did not visit any libraries in Belgrade, probably the largest city in south-eastern Europe and in this case for Malcolm's research, a vital institution of knowledge.

I reject the excuse that he did not have the time or that the sources in Belgrade's library would have been highly biased in regards to his research because the same could be argued about the sources in Zagreb and Tirana.

Another criticism that I would make is that all of the people that he acknowledges at the beginning of his book are non-Serbs, either Croats, Albanians, Bosnians or Westerners which raises questions about his objectivity.

Now, to the book. I think that the earlier chapters on Kosovo's history are relatively well-balanced but do get the impression that he reserves a disproportionately larger share of the book to talking about the history of the Albanians, rather than the history of Kosovo's Serbs (from the 16th century onwards)

I think that the area of Kosovo that he calls "Eastern Kosovo" is also quite neglected historically, whereas he reserves alot of paper for Western Kosovo, possibly because that area had a much larger population.

From the period 1912-1941, however, Malcolm is blatantly partisan in favour of the Albanians, although certainly the Albanians did suffer terribly at the hands of the Belgrade and local Serbian administrators,leaders and armed forces. While commenting on the atrocities carried out by the Chetniks, Serbian and Montenegrin armies, such as forced conversions in the Pec area, massacres at Urosevac etc he doesn't reserve any space for atrocities committed against Serb civilians in Kosovo, which I find astounding. With Kosovo during WW2 he takes a far more balanced approach and states that Albanians and Serbs were committing atrocities against each other, although the Serbs were clearly receiving the worst of the treatment. However, he then quotes one Croat and one Serb historian and one claims that 3,000 Albanians were killed altogether and the other states that 14,000 were killed. There is a huge discrepancy of 11,000 which is not explained by Malcolm. Also, both generally agree that between 3 and 4,000 Serbs died; how is that so, if he stated previously that they bore the brunt of the atrocities? His own view about the Italian and German occupation of Kosovo seems to be relatively benign as well, and there is no criticism of the highly nationalist Balli Kombetar movement in Kosovo during this period.

Finally, his last two chapters from 1945-1997 are generally fair although I would raise one point. He claims that only about 0.4% of Serbs that emigrated from the period 1966-1980's said they left because of harrassment and violence by Albanians. I personally find this very hard to believe, because there has been plenty of documented evidence to support the theory that many Serbs were leaving because of coercion and violence. Its true that the Albanians have the highest birth rate in Europe and that the economic conditions were poor but to say that 99.6% of Serbs left for these two reasons alone is erroneous.

So, to sum up. Malcolm has clearly done some excellent research on Kosovo and I think that it is completely unfair and incorrect to say that his book is biased all the way through and therefore not worthy to be called a history book. Also, some reviewers criticise Malcolm for using alot more Albanian sources than Serbian ones. I suppose this is understandable, considering that at the time of writing 90% of Kosovo's population was Albanian.

Its also misleading to say that whenever he does quote a Serb, it is simply to attack or negate Serbian beliefs and ideologies.

Malcolm has used a wide variety of Serbian sources and has also disregarded and corrected certain Albanian myths as being false or exaggerations. For example, the notion that Albanians were always a majority in Kosovo and how some Albanian writers refer to the Presevo valley in southern Serbia as "Eastern Kosovo", the claim that 40,000 Albanians died in Kosovo during WW2, etc.

A highly enjoyable book which is slightly spoiled in some chapters due to partisan views.

Perhaps a better title for this would be: "Kosovo: an Interminable History". I found this book to be very difficult reading, and I was unable to finish it. I have a degree in history, and have read many academic works (as opposed to popular books), but the mark of a truly great historian is the ability to write lucidly and bring the story to life. Malcolm's work is very earnest and brimming with minutiae, but the focus here is on the analysis of documents, and the narrative gets bogged down in a torrent of detail. Given the controversies he is trying to examine, this is perhaps unavoidable; but these issues could have been made more understandable by a more gifted writer.

As to the charges of bias that have been levelled against this book, I did not see any signs of this(admittedly, I only read about half). It certainly lacks the kind of inflammatory and slanted language that are the hallmarks of truly biased writing.

If you're looking for the kind of vivid historical narrative found in such books as Robert Kaplan's "Balkan Ghosts", this work will probably disappoint you.

Remarkable for its thoroughness in its research. Malcolm has dug up many documented sources that seem not to have seen the light of day for some time. According to Malcolm, "there is not a single library, in Western Europe or even in the Balkans, that offers all the relevant materials under one roof." That is a tragedy. But it goes along way to explaining the distortions of the region's history. The citation list for this book is a virtual tour of libraries and holdings in the cities and towns of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires and those of the Great Powers of the 19th century. Again this isn't surprising as a great deal of the historical mythology was created during the last half of the 19th century.

"Kosovo: a short history" is remarkable in its clear, readable prose. This is not a dull text. And the region and its history should have been better known to the West. Right through the book, well-known historical figures make cameo appearances. My favourite was a fellow who in 1912 or 1913 was " shocked by the evidence he encountered of atrocities by Serbian and Bulgarian forces." The fellow would later become better known as Leon Trotsky. But the book is full of these oddities. It isn't surpising. Look at a map and Kosovo was an overland route to the Middle East - and a bulwark of the Ottoman Empire against Western and Central Europe: Christian Europe. I should have known all this much earlier, but - like most western educated historians - I didn't pay enough attention.