For more than a thousand years before the arrival of the Slavs in the sixth century AD, the lands between the Adriatic and the river Danube, now Yugoslavia and Albania, were the home of the peoples known to the ancient world as Illyrians. This book, now available in paperback, draws upon the considerable archaeological evidence that has become available since the Second World War to provide an account of the origins, culture, history and legacy of the Illyrians.John Wilkes describes the geography of Illyria and surveys the region in the prehistoric, Greek, Roman and medieval periods. He discusses Illyrian art, material, culture, religion and customs. A chapter examines the Illyrian language, of which little trace survives, and its connection with other Indo-European languages. Professor Wilkes also scrutinizes the linguistic evidence for the Illyrians' relatedness to other peoples - Thracian, Italic, Greek and Celtic. He concludes with a discussion of a possible survival of an Illyrian native culture in the Roman and Byzantine periods.

Durham, an artist and illustrator, first visited Montenegro on doctor's orders following an illness and depression -- and this introduction to the Balkans sparked a passion that lasted a lifetime. Though the way of life she chronicles has, sadly, mostly disappeared, her comments on how to resolve the region's vexed and often violent politics still ring true.

Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Albania," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Albania in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Albania when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Albania, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain.

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared its independence, becoming the seventh state to emerge from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. A tiny country of just two million people, 90% of whom are ethnic Albanians, Kosovo is central-geographically, historically, and politically-to the future of the Western Balkans and, in turn, its potential future within the European Union. But the fate of both Kosovo, condemned by Serbian leaders as a "fake state" and the region as a whole, remains uncertain. In Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know, Tim Judah provides a straight-forward guide to the complicated place that is Kosovo. Judah, who has spent years covering the region, offers succinct, penetrating answers to a wide range of questions: Why is Kosovo important? Who are the Albanians? Who are the Serbs? Why is Kosovo so important to Serbs? What role does Kosovo play in the region and in the world? Judah reveals how things stand now and presents the history and geopolitical dynamics that have led to it. The most important of these is the question of the right to self-determination, invoked by the Kosovo Albanians, as opposed to right of territorial integrity invoked by the Serbs. For many Serbs, Kosovo's declaration of independence and subsequent recognition has been traumatic, a savage blow to national pride. Albanians, on the other hand, believe their independence rights an historical wrong: the Serbian conquest (Serbs say "liberation") of Kosovo in 1912. For anyone wishing to understand both the history and possible future of Kosovo at this pivotal moment in its history, this book offers a wealth of insight and information in a uniquely accessible format.

An account of how Kosovo became the crucible of one of the 20th-century's most poisonous ethnic conflicts. Written by a seasoned journalist who witnessed the Balkan conflagration and its aftermath, it presents an analysis of the origins of the Serb-Albanian conflict, the course of the battle, the issues and personalities, and options for the future. In this second edition Tim Judah updates the story to, and beyond, the fall of Milosevic.

On November 8, 1943, U.S. Army nurse Agnes Jensen stepped out of a cold rain into a C-53 transport plane. But she and twelve other nurses never arrived in Bari, Italy, where they were to transport wounded soldiers to hospitals farther from the front lines. A violent storm and pursuit by German Messerschmitts led to a crash landing in a remote part of Albania, leaving the nurses, their team of medics, and flight crew stranded in German-occupied territory. What followed was a dangerous nine-week game of hide-and-seek with the enemy, a situation President Roosevelt monitored daily. Albanian partisans aided the stranded Americans in the search for a British Intelligence Mission, and the group began a long and hazardous journey to the Adriatic coast. During the following weeks, they crossed Albania’s second highest mountain in a blizzard, were strafed by German planes, managed to flee a town moments before it was bombed, and watched helplessly as an attempt to airlift them out was foiled by German forces. Albanian Escape is the suspense-filled story of the only group of Army flight nurses to have crash-landed and spent any length of time in occupied territory during World War II. The nurses and soldiers endured fridgid weather, survived on little food, and literally wore out their shoes trekking across the rugged countryside. Thrust into a perilous situation and determined to survive, these women found courage and strength in each other and in the kindnesses of Albanians and guerrillas who hid them from the Germans.

King Zog was a curiosity, and so he has remained the most unusual European monarch of the 20th century, a man entirely without royal connections who created his own kingdom. By contemporaries, he was variously labeled "the last ruler of romance," "an appalling gangster," "the modern Napoleon," "the finest patriot," and "frankly a cad." Even today his reputation is disputed, but Zog was undeniably one of the foremost figures in Albanian history. Though notorious for cut-throat political intrigue, he promised to bring order and progress to a land that had long known little of either. "It was I who made Albania," he claimed.

On a warm spring morning in 1999, in the midst of NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia, Serbian security and paramilitary forces descended on the small village of Cuska, near the western Kosovo city of Pec. Soldiers with painted faces and masks rounded up the population and forced them to assemble in the center of the village. The women, children, and elderly were separated from any men who had not managed to flee. The villagers were threatened and robbed of their money, jewelry, and identification papers. Twenty-nine men were divided into three groups and taken into three separate houses, where they were sprayed repeatedly with automatic weapons. Each house was then set on fire and left to burn. This gripping investigative account of the massacre establishes the truth of what happened in Cuska, deepens our understanding of war crimes, and sheds light on the world of paramilitaries who carry out mass killings of civilians in the name of the state.The events in Cuska are emblematic of the destruction of hundreds of other villages throughout Kosovo. But in this case there was a difference: in each of the three groups of men there was one survivor who managed to crawl from each of the burning houses. They, and many others present that day, told their stories to Human Rights Watch, a research and advocacy organization that monitors abuses in more than seventy countries around the world. Fred Abrahams scanned into his laptop photographs of Serbian security forces apparently left behind when they withdrew from Kosovo, and showed them to victims, who identified the perpetrators.With an essay by Eric Stover and a collection of arresting photographs by Gilles Peress of the exile and return of Kosovar Albanians to their homes and villages, this book presents a riveting, multifaceted story of unmatched depth and complexity. A final section of "self-portraits" taken by Serbian troops and paramilitaries holds the key to understanding how Serb forces were able to overrun so much territory in so little time.

M. Edith Durham is best known for her classic travel books about the Balkans. However she was also a passionate, articulate and well-informed commentator on Balkan politics and the machinations of the Great Powers. This book brings together articles and letters written by Durham which have been out of the public domain since their original publication in journals, magazines and newspapers. Written in Edith Durham's inimitable style, the book delves beneath the surface of events and offers a compelling portrait of the continuing struggle for Albanian independence. Although the materials in the book were written over sixty years ago, they presage current events in the Balkans with an uncanny resonance. The book will afford readers a remarkable insight into the historical origins of contemporary events in the Balkans.I.B.Tauris in association with the Centre for Albanian Studies

RUMPALLA, RUMMAGING THROUGH ALBANIA is a newspaperman’s book. In it Lucas not only writes about his experiences traveling throughout the then-closed, tightly –controlled Communist country in the late 1980s, but he tells the story through the eyes of a reporter. In 1986 he became the first Americana reporter to be allowed into the country in thirty years. Returning again and again, Lucas chronicled the changes the country went through as it broke away from the hard line Communism of Joseph Stalin to join the rest of the nations of Europe as a fledging democracy. In between, the writer found time to search for the site of a World War II American plane crash, find his father’s abandoned village, trace the High Albania footsteps of early English traveler Edith Durham, and help Kosovar refugees during the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia. In between, searching for the heart of Albania, he got to know and interview Albanian peasants and presidents.