Designed to respond to the general public's interest in the Balkans, this book explores the historical roots of current conflicts and social and political developments. Beginning with the emergence of nation-states in the 19th century, it takes the story through to the current search for stability.

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At the end of the 20th century people spoke as if the Balkans had plagued Europe forever. But 200 years earlier, the Balkans did not even exist. It was not the Balkans but the "Rumeli" that the Ottamans ruled, formerly the Roman lands that they had conquered from Byzantium, together with its Christian inhabitants. To Westerners too, familiar with classical regional terms such as Macedonia, Epiros and Dacia, the term "Balkan" conveyed little. In this account of the region, Mark Mazower dispels current Western cliches and replaces stereotypes with a vivid account of how mountains, empires and religions have shaped its inhabitants' lives. As a bridge between Europe and Asia it has been exposed to a constant incursion of nomadic peoples across the centuries. Mountain ranges made farming hard and political control almost impossible, and allowed small communities to live side by side through to the end of the 20th century. Empires based on religion not ethnicity shaped customs and beliefs in ways that did not entirely vanish with the coming of modernity.