Pavlowitch combines a detailed grasp of history, encyclopaedic knowledge and a genuine affection for the Balkan countries into this impressive overview, with clear attention for the larger trends, yet enough detail on every country. In every chapter, countries are covered either successively or grouped ('the losers', 'the winners').
This is no light read where you can skip over "filler" paragraphs, as every sentence adds content to the impressive tapestry. You also need to remain concentrated to keep track of the various leaders and regions(and maybe have an atlas at hand if like me you don't quite know how to distinguish the Dobrudja from Bessarabia from Bukovina). ( )