Serbia since 1989 : politics and society under Miloæseviâc and after

During their thirteen years in power, Slobodan Milosevic and his cohorts plunged Yugoslavia into wars of ethnic cleansing, leading to the murder of thousands of civilians.

The Milosevic regime also subverted the nation's culture, twisted the political mainstream into a virulent nationalist mold, sapped the economy through war and the criminalization of a free market, returned to gender relations of a bygone era, and left the state so dysfunctional that its peripheries -- Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro -- have been struggling to maximize their distance from Belgrade, through far-reaching autonomy or through outright independence.

In this valuable collection of essays, Vjeran Pavlakovic, Reneo Lukic, and Obrad Kesic examine elements of continuity and discontinuity from the Milosevic era to the twenty-first century, the struggle at the centre of power, and relations between Serbia and Montenegro.

Essays by Eric Gordy, Maja Miljovic and Marko Hoare, and Kari Osland look at the legacy of Serbia's recent wars -- issues of guilt and responsibility, the economy, and the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, respectively. Sabrina Ramet and Biljana Bijelic address the themes of culture and values.

Frances Trix, Emil Kerenji, and Dennis Reinhartz explore the peripheries in the politics of Kosovoa, Vojvodina, and Serbia's Roma.

Serbia Since 1989 reveals a Serbia that is still traumatized from Milosevic's rule and groping toward redefining its place in the world.

Sabrina P. Ramet is professor of political science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, and a research associate at the Science and Research Center of the Republic of Slovenia, Koper.

Vjeran Pavlakovic is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Washington and former Fulbright fellow at the University of Zagreb in Croatia