Rating:  Summary: A Journey to the Rivers; Justice for Serbia Review: An excellent book for those who wish to want to have an alternative prespective and source of information with respect to the conflicts in Yugoslavia. While the editorial reviews were negative, they are also hypocritical, as it is appears unlikely that either of the two editorial reviewers have any first-hand information, but instead are regurgitating information from the western press (one of the key points which Handke raises).
Rating:  Summary: A Journey to the Rivers; Justice for Serbia Review: An excellent book for those who wish to want to have an alternative prespective and source of information with respect to the conflicts in Yugoslavia. While the editorial reviews were negative, they are also hypocritical, as it is appears unlikely that either of the two editorial reviewers have any first-hand information, but instead are regurgitating information from the western press (one of the key points which Handke raises).
Rating:  Summary: FANTASTIC!!!!!!! Review: Finally someone gets that serbs can not possibly be the only responsible in the war in the former Yugoslavia
Rating:  Summary: 2 million Serbs died fighting the Nazis Review: German literary genius Peter Handke should be commended for setting the record straight. Negative comments here by self proclaimed experts on Balkan and Serbian history are ridiculous. Comparing Serbs, who fought en-masse against the Nazis, to their killers is nothing but a pure insult to the intelligence of any decent person, especially since most Muslims, Albanians, and Croats fought for Hitler. I am more proud than anything to be a Serb, and I am proud of the German intellectual Peter Handke for his show of courage. Mr. Handke has put his own life and reputation on the line for the Serbian people, Serbia loves you Mr. Handke. Thank-you.
Rating:  Summary: A Wake-Up Call for Biased Western Journalism Review: Handke's small but insightful book has one simple message (amidst many subtle ones): when it comes to Western media coverage of Serbia and the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, "The Emperor Has No Clothes." Many Croats and their sympathizers have criticized Handke's book sharply for being pro-Serb, but it really can't be reasonably interpreted that way. Rather, the book is an outcry against the wholesale demonization of a people who have been portrayed, wrongly, as ignorant, barbaric, rabid nationalists drunk on historical myths and bent on vengeance, pillage and killing. In fact, all sides in this conflict have manipulated ethnic nationalism for their own ends -- and, among them, the Serbs have been principally distinguished by the relative lack of success in this regard (particularly when compared with Croatia, for example). Read this book for a wake-up call. Things are not as black and white simple as your newspaper or CNN's clever talking heads (or Messr.s Clinton or Blair) would have you believe.
Rating:  Summary: A Wake-Up Call for Biased Western Journalism Review: Handke's small but insightful book has one simple message (amidst many subtle ones): when it comes to Western media coverage of Serbia and the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, "The Emperor Has No Clothes." Many Croats and their sympathizers have criticized Handke's book sharply for being pro-Serb, but it really can't be reasonably interpreted that way. Rather, the book is an outcry against the wholesale demonization of a people who have been portrayed, wrongly, as ignorant, barbaric, rabid nationalists drunk on historical myths and bent on vengeance, pillage and killing. In fact, all sides in this conflict have manipulated ethnic nationalism for their own ends -- and, among them, the Serbs have been principally distinguished by the relative lack of success in this regard (particularly when compared with Croatia, for example). Read this book for a wake-up call. Things are not as black and white simple as your newspaper or CNN's clever talking heads (or Messr.s Clinton or Blair) would have you believe.
Rating:  Summary: Serbian Victims Review: Handke's work is both brave and instructive in that he has the courage to say what many only privately acknowledge - that the war in Bosnia generated some of the most successful propaganda and misinformation campaigns the world have ever witnessed. Now that the war is over, people are beginning to intelligently pick through what really happened. The Serbs of Bosnia and especially Croatia were by and large the real victims of those wars. More than 500,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia in 1995 - the largest single population transfer since World War II. Yet the West ignored this monstrous war crime. Handke is correct in stating that journalists - aided by slick media relations from Zagreb and Sarajevo - painted the war as a simple good vs evil conflict. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The numerous mass graves of Serbian civilians is brutal testimonty to that.
Rating:  Summary: Truly a joke Review: How in the world could someone given all the clear and irrefutable evidence of the Serbian war crimes and genocidal actions could someone with any common sense write such nonsense. I hear his next book will be about how the Jews were responsible for their fates in WWII.
Rating:  Summary: mike.milakovic@mailexcite.com Review: I don't know how these last few people have been able to write reviews of this book because I've been trying to get my hands on this book for about a year now and all bookstores online are out of them. If anyone who is reading this can figure out a way I can have a chance to read this book, please email me at the address mentioned above. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks All!
Rating:  Summary: Lyrical questions Review: I know nothing about Serbia beyond what the press commonly reports. This book is the first I have read about that country. It makes no apologies for Serbian atrocities. It does, however, lyrically call journalists and journalism to task. Written in German in late 1995 for a European audience, this 82-page book applies equally to the U.S. I speak as a former journalist who, during 25 years of largely national U.S. writing, plumbed every side to every question before reaching conclusions--always over-reporting to find nuances, and often reaching conclusions only as I wrote. It was a handicap not easily overcome. That is not how many, perhaps even most, journalists work. The fault is built into the system. Editors expect reporters to have an angle before they present an idea. Without a hook, assignments are often not made. Editors will deny it, but they expect reporters to have reached some conclusion before they begin reporting, and to report to prove their points. In other words, they routinely ask journalists to put the cart before the horse--an especially troubling phenomenon in this era of political correctness. Reporters say they are after truth and good. Most are in fact after the big game, the story to make them famous, a kill. Nowadays CNN hires television actors as news anchors. You get the picture. Ironically, on big stories covered by throngs--which I intensely disliked and avoided, and which of course include wars--reporters tend to mimic each other, to sit around after they file, bragging about their prowess. The largest braggarts are also often the least talented. Institutionalized problems have a depressing effect on journalism. Few stories are black and white. But most present that illusion, although they are products of very little, if any, deductive thought. Certainly, nuances do not surface in short sound bites feeding most news wires. Peter Handke seems to know all this--and a great deal of philosophy. Serbia aside, this book shows, in near-poetic language, that things are not always as journalists portray them. For that alone, Handke's tiny volume is worth its weight in gold. Alyssa A. Lappen
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