BACK VIA EGNATIA FOUNDATION BIBLIOGRAPHY
author Mazower, Mark
title The Balkans: from the end of Byzantium to the present day
year 2002 (2nd ed.; 176 pag.)
location London
publisher Phoenix Press
ISBN 10, 13 1842125443, 978-1842125441
description At the end of the twentieth century people spoke as if the Balkans had plagued Europe for ever. But two hundred years earlier, the Balkans did not exist. It was not the Balkans but the 'Rumeli' that the Ottomans ruled, the formerly Roman lands they had conquered from Byzantium, together with their Christian inhabitants. In this original account of the region Mark Mazower dispels current Western cliches and replaces stereotypes with a vivid account of how mountains, empires and religions have shaped its inhabitants' lives. As a bridge between Europe and Asia it has been exposed to a constant incursion of nomadic peoples across the centuries.Mazower's narrative ranges broadly both in time and in space, treating the former Turkish domains in Europe as part of a common if complex historical inheritance.
The book has won the Wolfson History Prize.