Yugoslavia was well positioned at the end of the cold war to make a successful transition to a market economy and westernization. Yet two years later, the country had ceased to exist, and devastating local wars were being waged to create new states. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the start of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in March 1992, the country moved toward disintegration at astonishing speed. In this book, Susan Woodward explains what happened to Yugoslavia and what can be learned from the response of outsiders to its crisis. Woodward's analysis is based on her first-hand experience before the country's collapse and then during the later stages of the Bosnian war as a member of the UN operation sent to monitor cease-fires and provide humanitarian assistance.

Serbo-Croation collection. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- The bases of prewar stability -- The politics of economic reform and global integration -- Escalation -- Interrupted democratization: The path to war -- Western intervention -- The right to national self-determination -- War: Building states from nations -- Stopping the Bosnian war -- The dynamic of disintegration and nationalist war -- Conclusion.