Milosevic

出版者:Free Press

作者:Louise Branson

页数:320

出版时间:1999-11-12

价格:USD 25.00

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780684843087

具体描述

Who is Slobodan Milosevic?

Is he the next Saddam Hussein, the leader of a renegade nation who will continue to torment the United States for years to come? Or is he the next Moammar Qaddafi, an international outcast silenced for good by a resolute American bombing campaign?

The war in Kosovo in the spring of 1999 introduced many Americans to the man the newspapers have called "the butcher of the Balkans," but few understand the crucial role he has played and continues to play in the most troubled part of Europe. Directly or indirectly, Milosevic has waged war and instigated brutal ethnic cleansing in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, and he was indicted for war crimes in May 1999. Milosevic's rise to power, from lowly Serbian apparatchik to president of Yugoslavia, is a tale of intrigue, cynical manipulation, and deceit whose full dimensions have never been presented to the American public.

In this first full-length biography of the Yugoslav leader, veteran foreign correspondents Dusko Doder and Louise Branson paint a disturbing portrait of a cunning politician who has not shied from fomenting wars and double-crossing enemies and allies alike in his ruthless pursuit of power. Whereas most dictators encourage a cult of personality around themselves, Milosevic has been content to operate in the shadows, shunning publicity and allowing others to grab the limelight -- and then to take the heat when things go badly. Milosevic's secretive style, the authors show, emerged in response to a family history of depression (both of his parents committed suicide) and has served him well as he begins his second decade in power.

Doder and Branson introduce us to the key figures behind Milosevic's rise: his wife, Mirjana Markovic, who is often described (with justification) as a Serbian Lady Macbeth, and the Balkan and American politicians who learned, too late, about the costs of underestimating Milosevic. They also reveal how the United States refused to take the necessary action in 1992 to remove Milosevic from power without bloodshed -- not realizing that he uses such moments of weakness as opportunities to lull his opponents into traps, thereby paving the way for a new consolidation of power. Now, in the wake of the victory in Kosovo, it remains to be seen whether America will learn this lesson or whether we will allow this deeply troubled man to continue to pose a threat to European peace and security as the twenty-first century dawns.

作者简介

Dusko Doder is a former Washington Post reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent. He is also author of several non-fiction books including Shadows and Whispers: Power Politics Inside the Kremlin from Brezhnev to Gorbachev, and a best-selling Gorbachev biography, Heretic in the Kremlin. He is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, and holds two advance degrees from Columbia University. Doder's dispatches from Moscow were awarded the Overseas Press Club Citations for Excellence in 1982 and 1989, and the 1984 Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting of Georgetown University. Doder had a world beat on the death of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, much to the chagrin of the CIA which had strongly denied his report. He was the only western correspondent to interview Andropov's successor, Konstantin Chernenko. He has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1976-77 and 1985-86, and a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace, 1996-97. The Firebird Affair is his first novel.

用户评价

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从纯粹的阅读体验来说，这本书的“沉浸感”达到了一个极高的水准。作者似乎拥有某种魔力，能够瞬间将读者从现实的沙发上抽离，直接投放到那个充满争议与动荡的历史现场。这种沉浸感并非依赖于华丽的场景描写，而是源于对人物内心世界的深刻挖掘和环境氛围的精准营造。你会真切地感受到那些历史参与者在面对重大抉择时的那种生理上的压力——那种令人窒息的恐惧、短暂的狂喜，以及随之而来的巨大失落。书中的对话设计尤为精彩，它们往往言简意赅，表面上风平浪静，实则暗流涌动，充满了未尽之言和潜台词。我感觉自己就像一个潜伏在他们身边的无形观察者，目睹了一切，却无法干预分毫，这种无力感，恰恰是历史研究者与参与者之间的永恒张力。这是一本会让你在深夜里合上它，仍然心绪难平，需要时间平复呼吸的作品。

这本书的文字功力着实令人惊叹，它行文的流畅度与思想的深度形成了完美的统一。我发现自己常常需要停下来，反复咀嚼某些句子，因为它们像诗歌一样凝练，又像哲学思辨一样深邃。作者的语言风格是极其个人化的，充满了强烈的内在节奏感，仿佛能听到叙述者内心深处那股压抑不住的激情或绝望。这种文笔上的独特性，使得阅读过程变成了一种沉浸式的体验，而非简单的信息接收。它擅长使用大量的意象和隐喻，将抽象的政治概念具象化，让读者能更直观地把握其精神内核。比如，书中对某种特定氛围的描绘，用词的精准度，简直能让人仿佛闻到空气中弥漫的尘土与紧张感。尽管主题沉重，但作者的笔法却非常优雅，这种强烈的反差，反而更增添了文本的艺术感染力。这是一部需要用心去“听”的文字作品，而不是用眼睛快速“扫过”的作品，每一次重读，都会发现新的纹理和层次。

这本书的价值，很大程度上体现在它对“记忆”这一主题的处理上。它探讨的不仅仅是事件本身，更是事件在不同人心中如何被重塑、被遗忘、或被刻意保留。作者似乎在不断地提醒我们，历史记录本身就是一种选择性的建构。书中穿插的那些看似无关的旁白或引述，实际上构成了对主要叙事的有力补充和间接的质疑。我特别欣赏作者如何在提供丰富史料的同时，保持了恰到好处的距离感，他没有把话说死，而是留下了大量的解读空间给读者。这使得每个读者在合上书本时，都会带着自己独特的理解和未解的疑问离开，这本书更像是一个开启思考的钥匙，而不是一个提供标准答案的终点。它成功地将一个宏大的历史叙事，转化成了一场关于认知、视角和真相对话的私人旅程。读完后，你不会满足于一个结论，而是会开始审视自己过去接受的历史知识的来源和可靠性。

我得说，这本书的结构布局非常大胆且富有挑战性。它没有采用线性的时间轴叙事，而是采取了一种碎片化、多视角的交织方式，起初读起来确实需要读者付出更多的专注力来梳理线索。然而，一旦适应了这种独特的叙事骨架，你会发现这种非线性结构恰恰是服务于主题的最佳载体——历史的真相往往不是一个清晰的直线，而是无数交错、相互矛盾的片段。作者巧妙地在不同人物的记忆和观察之间跳跃，这种跳跃感营造出一种“迷宫”般的氛围，你必须自己去拼凑出完整的图景。更妙的是，不同章节间的语气和焦点会发生微妙的变化，这不仅避免了叙述的单调，更暗示了不同信息源之间的立场差异与不可靠性。读到最后，那种“真相大白”的瞬间并非一个简单的揭示，而更像是所有碎片在脑海中轰然契合的复杂顿悟。对于喜欢结构复杂、挑战阅读习惯的读者来说，这本书无疑是一次智力上的盛宴。