Mojzes's book concerns ethnic cleansing or genocide in the Balkans three separate times in the 20th century. He bases his analysis on both primary and secondary sources, and the scope of the work as a whole is one of a region where violence built from one generation to the next. His research on the Balkan Wars (1912-13) is valuable, for while that series of conflicts has been told before, Mojzes (religious studies, Rosemont College) focuses on the killing between ethnic groups that is chilling and distinct from Great Power politics. From that point, it did not take much ignition from the Nazis to spark genocide in the region during WW II. Mojzes's discussion of the Jasenovac camps, both what the sources and the partisan politicians recount, is instructive. The author concludes with a glimpse into the genocide as Yugoslavia was breaking up, and the complexity of how to sort through such bestial killing both legally and morally. This study includes important details for scholars and students....Mojzes has written a study on which other scholars will be able to build. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Choice Reviews

The Balkan peninsula, with its crisscrossing mountain ranges, is divided into relatively small geographic regions and equally small religious and ethnic enclaves. Whenever the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and, later, various Communist overlordships crumbled, the peoples of those divisions were free to have at each other throughout the last century. As Mojzes, a professor of religious studies at Rosemont College, indicates, the Balkans have earned “bragging rights” as a center of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Mojzes begins with a definition of terms, distinguishing between the often misunderstood differences between genocide and ethnic cleansing. He proceeds in a methodical, sometimes ponderous way to explain the causes and courses of these outrages while striving for fairness, since objectivity about such emotional issues may be impossible. Some of the events he reports, such as the cleansing and massacres during the breakup of Yugoslavia, will be familiar to most readers. Others, such as the mass expulsions and killings during the Balkan wars of 1912–13, are less well-known. A disturbing but important work about a still volatile region.

Booklist

With this book, Paul Mojzes has again put Eastern European scholarship in his debt....No other book offers such a thorough, careful, balanced treatment of the topic. The scholarship is sound: it is careful, even comprehensive (given the limitations of some sources), and as complete as could be hoped. This is the best book in the field. It is warmly recommended.

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Author Paul Mojzes tests the application of the terms ‘genocide’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, and ‘holocaust’ to the twentieth-century history of South-eastern Europe. Mojzes is concerned about what he sees as the propensity for mass violence in the region in question, ‘if there were “bragging rights” for being a genocidal and ethnic cleansing area, the Balkans could claim championship status’, says Mojzes (p. 1). He looks for evidence of genocide and ethnic cleansing during the period of the Balkan wars at the beginning of the twentieth century (1912-1913) the Second World War (1941-1945), and the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia at the end of the twentieth-century (1991-1999). . . To be sure, this is an important and worthwhile project.

H-Soz-Kult

Paul Mojzes is a well-informed and eminent historian of religion with a profound interest in the study of ethno-religion as the rationale for genocide. ... He offers his readers an excellent comprehensive and systematic, narrative of the horrific events that dominated the first and last decades of the previous century. ... His analysis and the interpretation of the different wars in the Balkans during the last century, and horrors they produces are very engaging. Mojzes' book adds greatly to our understanding of ethnic conflict and genocide. I highly recommend Balkan Genocides to anyone interested in topics of ethnic cleansing, genocide, ethno-religious nationalism, ethno-religious warfare, and cultural vandalism.

Insight

Balkan Genocides sets out a history of conflict, mass violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in the Balkans throughout the Twentieth Century. It is an extremely useful text, providing an overview of such events during that period, and offers readers more of a contextual conception of conflicts in the region. . . .In writing this book, Mojzes is clearly driven by a passion for justice and truth — an acknowledgment of wrongs — as a way to move forward and attempt to clear the hostilities of the past. . . .Balkan Genocides is a valuable contribution to the literature, and will be of use on the shelf of any scholar or practitioner in the fields of genocide studies, history, political science, international law, religion, socio-cultural anthropology, and sociology.

E-International Relations