Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War

Rating:
Summary: One-sided and simplistic account of Bosnian war
Review: Peter Maas' book is certainly fast-paced, exciting and full of interesting anecdotes from the war in Bosnia. However, it's also a very simplistic and one-sided description of the Bosnian war, casting Serbia and the Serbs as nationalistic aggressors and the Muslims and Croats as innocent victims. Maas fails to mention that ethnic cleansing, torture of prisoners, massacres of civilians and political manipulation was also perpetrated by the Croatian and Muslim, factions in this brutal civil war. In place of any real analysis of the causes, events and results of the war Maas gives the reader emotionally gripping anecdotes. Rather than describing the complicated reality of the war he prefers to present it as a clear cut case of 'good guys' vs 'bad guys'. In many ways, this book is very typical of US media accounts of the Bosnian civil war in that it is very obviously written from a Muslim point of view. -Oskar-

Rating:
Summary: Putting the reader in the former Yugoslavia
Review: Peter Maass covers the former Yugoslavia's crisis for the first time in a manner that the reader can understand enabling empathy and comprehension of an incident that finally reached us in a very literal manner. Mr. Maass gives first hand accounts of the problems without sensationalism for its own sake, "war porn," but with graphic verbal illustrations and explainations. For the first time the American people can read something that explains the events of Yugoslavias breakup, its horrors and the West's part role in the destruction of a people and their culture.

Rating:
Summary: powerful, chilling
Review: Peter Maass presents a chilling story about the horrors of the War in Yugoslavia and his terrifying moments as a journalist covering another episode of man's inhumanity to man, ethnic cleansing, murder, war. This book haunted my sleep and changed my life. After reading Maass' book, I was driven to visit Sarajevo, Karlowac, Srjebenica. My life will never be the same. As Americans, we repeatedly, through history, have looked the other way while genocide destroys cultures. Peter Maass brings the nightmare of ethnic cleansing to the reader in ways that creep through the comforts of your life. READ IT, you will never stand by quietly again!

Rating:
Summary: An angry man's compelling history lesson
Review: Peter Maass was a Washington Post correspondent in Bosnia 1992-93 and this is his riveting, emotive account of the war. Maass echoes many of us when he unashamedly asks the most difficult questions: Why did 250,000 Bosians lose their lives, why can't Muslims and Christians work their differences out after so long, why did genocide occur in Europe when at the end of WW II the world declared it would never happen again, why was the UN impotent once it got into Bosnia, why is the thin skin of civility easily torn and the brutality that lies beneath so easily provoked? Maass was not a cynical, hotel room hero that gives journalism a bad name, those hacks more interested in boasting in the bar and filing stories from second-hand accounts provided by local help-meets. He did his job well and came away shell-shocked, angry and fundamentally changed by what he saw: UN troops standing by while atrocities took place, how residents of Sarajevo nightly ran the gauntlet of the airport, surgeons operating without drugs, children dying on the daily water run, snipers on opposing sides chatting to one another on a two-way radio, the flourishing drug trade, people cheating, lying, killing and stealing to keep their loved ones alive. Maass speculates a little too much - some judicious editing wouldn't have gone astray - and he cannot adequately analyse the causes of the war and the outcomes for the victims involved but this was not his job anyway. He was there as a recorder of events that became a black mark in history and that he did, admirably. Maass, like veteran journalist Simon Winchester who succinctly wrote of the later crisis in Kosovo and asked similar questions, gave ordinary victims of this war a voice. While such journalistic accounts lack historical perspective because their focus is on the immediacy, their evidence is invaluable. We need such accounts, so when the spectre of genocide is raised again we can hold up books like these and say: "Haven't we learned anything yet?"

Rating:
Summary: The darkness of human made visible in the Bosnian tragedy
Review: Peter Maass' "Love Thy Neighbor" is less an account of the Bosnian tragedy than it is an account of the darkness of humanity. Other than what is at times gruesome to the point of causing physical sickness (which is necessary in telling the story), Maass' book is incredible and is impossible to put down.

Rating:
Summary: A thorough, incisive exploration of the war in Bosnia.
Review: Peter Maass' insights into the causes of the war in Bosnia, the way the American media reported on it, and the way the US government handled it are important reading for anyone who has found themselves confused about the the war in the Balkans. His vivid descriptions of the atrocities committed during the course of the war and his compassionate portrayals of people affected by the conflict cut through the ambivalence and apathy many people have come to feel about a war they do not understand.

Rating:
Summary: Horror in Bosnia
Review: Retired Gen. Schwarzkopf once said, "People who watch Rambomovies, people who watch war on TV, some of these fellows whohave never owned a draft card but are these great military analysts that run our nation's capital who write columns advocating war, they don't know what the hell they're talking about." The same could be said of those who have not read Peter Maass' work on the recently-ended Bosnian war. Staff writer for the Washington Post, the author narrates his first-hand experience while on assignment there from 1992 to 1993: an honest-to-goodness horror story of abuses against Bosnian Muslims. Mr. Maass also reveals the indifference of the United States towards the plight of the Muslims, as well as the emasculated efforts of the United Nations peace-keeping forces to maintain the peace. The work is heart-rending and at the end, the author points out that such incomprehensible situations that arose in the Bosnian war are due to the animal nature that we human beings all possess inside of us, just waiting for the opportune moment to be released.

Rating:
Summary: Horror in Bosnia
Review: Retired Gen. Schwarzkopf once said, "People who watch Rambo movies, people who watch war on TV, some of these fellows who have never owned a draft card but are these great military analysts that run our nation's capital who write columns advocating war, they don't know what the hell they're talking about." The same could be said of those who have not read Peter Maass' work on the recently-ended Bosnian war. Staff writer for the Washington Post, the author narrates his first-hand experience while on assignment there from 1992 to 1993: an honest-to-goodness horror story of abuses against Bosnian Muslims. Mr. Maass also reveals the indifference of the United States towards the plight of the Muslims, as well as the emasculated efforts of the United Nations peace-keeping forces to maintain the peace. The work is heart-rending and at the end, the author points out that such incomprehensible situations that arose in the Bosnian war are due to the animal nature that we human beings all possess inside of us, just waiting for the opportune moment to be released.

Rating:
Summary: A gripping account which is hard to put down.
Review: Some people view war from the perspective of the generals and the soldiers. Reading about a war from a journalists perspective was quite a unique experience. Mr. Maass seemed gave his experience with authentic detail which seemed like I was right there with him, experiencing the horror of what human beings are capable of doing against our own brethren.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and informative
Review: The book was very interesting, and provides a good look at the war - although it is a little light on the history and reasons for the conflict.