In an attempt to piece together the tragic events in the Balkans, this book analyzes a conflict that has shocked Western nations not only because of its savagery but also because of its roots in a nationalist fervour which had seemed a thing of the past during the relative stability of the Cold War years. Historian Mark Almond examines the course of the Yugoslavian conflict itself, and looks at the worrying wider implications for the former USSR and other multi-national states forced together by 19th and early-20th-century empire-building.