Macedonia. Warlords & Rebels in the Balkans

Tobias Denskus (Fernuni Hagen) comments on the book: "Especially the chapters that are directly linked to the 2001 violence are noteworthy. They provide detailed descriptions of what happened (especially in the Tetovo area), but they fulfil a larger aim (as do the two books cited at thebeginning) by providing the reader with human stories and faces about war, peace, death, politicking...and hope. These accounts are a powerful reminder that pain and suffering do not need a "scale" and that even a "small" conflict with relatively little casualties causes tremendous grievance, trauma and people that suffer even years after the official peace agreement. This pays a tribute to the victims of the conflict and at the same time provides a fine example of war and peace journalism. These three chapters completely justify the quote on the cover that "this book is singularly free from bias, which is a great and rare blessing in works on the Balkans".

Especially the last two chapters deal with contemporary issues after the Ohrid peace agreement and unfortunately show the limitations of Phillips' approach. Phillips touches all the major issues (Albanian and Macedonian nationalism, open future of Kosovo, EU and NATO membership and the role of the neighbouring countries), but in very broad brushstrokes and without engaging too much with the domestic situation.

The decline of the economy with all of its socio-political implications, the struggles to reform the educational system, the frustrations of the population with the political elites (especially the encompassing party system), but also with large parts of the "civil society", the hot topics surrounding the forthcoming decentralisation, the role of the Romani minority (and its links to education or social welfare issues) and the Albanian Diaspora in Western Europe (and the question of unsustainable economic investment with larger parts of their remittances) - to name a few topics that seem high on the agenda of both the international donors, policy-makers as well as citizens."