The Balkans in World HistoryIn the historical and literary imagination, the Balkans loom large as a somewhat frightening but ill-defined space. Most attempts at definition focus on geography (the actual mountain range that gives the area its name and the lands surrounding it) or, more recently, on the set of prejudicesattached to the term by local and outside observers. There has been far less concern with attempting to define this space in positive terms, taking as a starting point not geography as such but rather the cultural, historical, and social threads that could allow us to see what might be merelycontiguous places as a coherent, though complex, whole. The goal of this volume is to do precisely that. The Balkans should probably be defined as that borderland geographical space in which four of the world's greatest civilizations have overlapped in a sustained and meaningful way to produce acomplex, dynamic, sometimes combustible, multi-layered local civilization. It is the space in which the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, of Byzantium, of Ottoman Turkey, and of Roman Catholic Europe met, clashed and sometimes combined. The history of the Balkans can be seen as a history ofcreative borrowing by local people of the various civilizations that have nominally conquered the region. Each civilization has thus been hybridized, modified, and amplified by other voices and traditions. |
Contents
The Balkans | 1 |
From Prehistory | 11 |
The Medieval Balkans | 29 |
Copyright | |
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absorbed many voices Albania ancient Greece ANDREW BARUCH WACHTEL Austria-Hungary Balkan Peninsula Balkans have absorbed Balkans in World Balkans loom large borderland geographical space Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Byzantine Byzantine Empire Christian civilizations have overlapped coherent if complex communist Croatia depicts the Balkans Design Cover image Dubrovnik Eminent historian Andrew Encompassing Bulgaria frightening and ill-defined Greek historian Andrew Wachtel ill-defined space Illyria Reborn Illyrians incredible cultural diversity Istanbul J. K. Scherer National Kosovo Macedonia Max Dressler Professor Montenegro multilayered local civilization Museum of Slovenia Muslim Mycenae Northwestern University Ottoman Empire Ottoman Turkey Oxford World History political population Reborn by Napoleon's redefines this space refreshingly positive look region of incredible River Design Cover Roberta Buffett Center Romania Running River Design Scherer National Museum Serbia Serbs Slavic Slavs Slovenia small and spiteful sometimes combustible territory vibrantly written Wachtel here depicts World History ISBN World History redefines wracked by racial written and refreshingly Yugoslavia