This is an odd book in every respect, and it reflects an odd historical phenomenon. Sure it is a fact that Albaina--Russia for that matter--industrialised and remained a soveriegn state throughout a period of terrible dictatorship. But these are simple facts, and not bases for a historical reevaluation of the true character of regimes.

This book reflects an attempt by the author to set himself apart by siding with a new historical school, one that I hope and have confidence will be disproven.

We owe as much to the twentieth century and the bitter lessons it has taught us, or most of us I should say.

Modern history witnessed nothing like Enver Hoxha's reign of terror over His own people.From His establishment in 1945,Albania was turned into Gulag,although that is only euphemism for real state of affairs.Untill 1948's Yugoslavia's split with Stalin,His country recevied enormous ammount of help from Belgrade,although it was ally of Axis,but latter He becomed so loyal to Stalin,that He broke-up with U.S.S.R. after Kruschev's turning away from stalinism and embraced Mao's China.So,the idea that Hoxha was pro-independence leaders do not agrees with fact that under His regime,Albania was always attached to "Big Brother" kind of country,in a most servile manner.He brought total devastation and unprecedented poverty to Albania-The Land of Million Bunkers.Compared with Albania,Albanians in Yugoslavia lived in California.Yet,Author glorifies Hoxha as some kind of positive figure,as if His policy is recomendable one for todays World.

O'Donnel represents "Getty-Rittersporn"-phenomenon, a new scholarship among Western historicians that aims to examine the history of Marxism-Leninism, not at bias, but as history. This objectivity is respectable and refutes the previous Cold War knee-jerk judgements perfectly.

O'Donnels work represents admirable honesty and respect regards historical facts. And the FACT IS, that within only 20 years, Albanians achieved what would had been taken 200 years in capitalist society. I definitely recommed this book for anyone interested in sincere research of history.

This book is a disappointment. It is more a discourse on the cultural attitudes of western European travellers (a topic already done to death by other academics over the past twenty years) than it is an original study of Ali Pasha. It merely reformulates in academic jargon the same information on Ali that has long been available in more readable form elsewhere. No doubt this reformulation will appeal to some readers, but for many this will be a book to slog through.

The book is a good reading, however Fleming puts Ali Pasha much more in a Greek context rather than in an Albanian one. It seems that the Greek factor is overly emphasized as to attract more attention to the story of Ali Pasha. My trips in the area show that Ali Pasha is much more present among Albanians than Greeks. Yet my kudos go to the author for exploring such an intriguing figure as Ali Pasha.

Fleming needs to go back in Epirus and rewrite the book. I thought Ali Pasha was Albanian.

This book is about how the Communists came to power in Albania -- with a few mentions of Yugoslavia -- after World War II. Unfortunately, the author repeats himself too much so that the reader gets the impression that he could have made his point in a quarter the number of pages. I am sure the book is well researched; however, the author seems to have a bone to pick with the political spectrum in general while evidently siding with the Communist doctrine over any other. Had I not been using the book for research purposes myself, I don't think I would have finished it.

This is a great book about the communist and the other factors that have driven the government in the baltic region. I was glued to the pages as if in a trance. I found the book thought provoking and challenging. I think that the other person who left a review should be dragged out onto the streets and shot. There are no words to describe the detail and thought that this book provides. If you are doing any sort of research project I would reccommend this book above all others

For many years, we in the West received practically no information about Albania, which, though in Europe, was more remote than Borneo or Tibet. Thus, any book which brought that small country to our attention, that could shed any light whatsoever on the Land of the Mountain Eagle, was worth reading. At the beginning of the 21st century, however, things have changed. Albania is open to the world, journalists and tourists can go there freely, aid workers come and go, and many books have been written already. Hence, books such as ALBANIA AND THE ALBANIANS are out of date. The author, a well-educated, Albanian man from Kosovo and a party official in foreign affairs in former Yugoslavia, wrote this volume about Albania in the early 1970s. He wrote it in Serbo-Croatian---an indication of how things have changed since then. Even though Yugoslavia and Albania were hardly on good terms, it seems that Yugoslav officials such as Marmullaku could not go too far in criticizing the brutalities and outright paranoia that permeated the Communist attempt to revolutionize Albanian society and bring it into the modern world. One infers that that would have been understood as implicit criticism of the Yugoslav regime as well. Marmullaku provides information about Albanian history, the national independence movement, and a very interesting chapter entitled "The family and tribal tradition" in which he admits that although Albania claimed to have wiped out blood feuds, they still existed and, indeed, were increasing in Kosovo. Of course we now know that the feuds in Albania were only suppressed by force, but once that force was removed, they returned. Most of the book deals with post-revolutionary Albania and is less than forthright on actual conditions, using statistics issued by the Hoxha regime. The last chapter is on Kosovo---the author's view of the Albanian position there, as citizens of Yugoslavia, sounding sadly naive or deliberately false in the year 2000. In general, this is a book that has not borne up well under the attacks of time. It can be read as an example of what kind of information on Albania was available for much of the 20th century.

To much is focused on the divisions between the albanians, without much truth. There are also episodes mentioned which did not indeed happen (there has been no anti-greek violence in Sarande in 1992). It is old information and althopugh it is helpful, its' quite out of date on many topics.

Albania recently was recognized for its critical humanitarian role as a safe haven for the 600,000 Kosovar men, women and children who fled from the carnage of Serbian police and Molosvich's military henchmen. Albania also was seen nightly on national television as the critical staging area for NATO during the Kosovo War, March through June 1999.

But few know that the people of this small European Baltic country are descendants of the Illyrians, who were the first people to use iron for tools and weapons. As well, few recognize that Mother Teresa, astronaut William Georgry, actor John Belushi and Dr. Ferid Murad, Nobel Laureate in medicine for his work in the development of Viagra, are all of Albanian heritage.

Even today Albania remains one of the least-known European countries since it was isolated by post-war Communism until 1991. Books on Albania in the English language are scarce, an issue which American-born Albanian Lou Giaffo seeks to remedy in this engaging but limited book.

Giaffo writes Albanian history from 1500 B.C. to modern times without the drab, cumbersome academic prose that one often finds in histories. He has a fresh writing style that keeps the reader engaged.

However, there are significant weaknesses in this work. Most Albanians who I spoke with cite four events in the last 60 years that significantly shaped Albania: Communism/Hoxha 1945, the Religious Purge 1967, the fall of Communism 1991 and the Pyramid Scheme 1997. Giaffo does an ample job covering the first and third of these critical historical events, but he failed to include the second and fourth. For a historical text with a 1999 publish date, these are significant omissions, as is the absence of an index (unheard of in any serious historical text). It is my hope that Giaffo follows up and addresses these issues in a second edition. As a writer he is both engaging and informative, a wonderful combination for a writer of history.

Conditionally Recommended

I knew when I ordered this book it would be from a particular point of view and even though it was not as extreme as I expected, it was true to form. The author here regards himself as a true student of the Balkans and Byzantine history, unlike others before him. He states early on that he is a Vlachophile and that if there is one Vlach speaker in a village it is labeled as being Vlach by him. And here lies his flaw.

Winnifruth may be a good historian, by this I mean the ability to gather lots of information, but his writing is style is confusing. The chapters are broken down in to time periods, but he will jump ahead to vaildate a point which can be very confusing and names and facts are crammed all together. His main anchor for ethnicity is language, but most of his ideas are assumptions and rules can change when he chooses. One case in point is that if Greek writing is found in ruins located in modern Albania then the people must have been Greek, but it is never taken into account that Greek was the written language at the time and it makes sense that the Greek alphabet would be used. At one point he mentions the Chams of Greece (He calls them by the Greek Tsam). They are labeled as Albanian speaking Muslims. If language is his guide these people are Albanian not Albanian speaking. Another point is the Arvanit community in Greece that is associated as being Greek, but only spoke Albanian a hundred years ago. Here language does not show what the comminuty sees itself as. Another point is the assumption of ethnicity of historical figures by their name and even thinking they are pure in their background. Names mean nothing and are written according to what a writer feels sound better. Mary was orginally Meriam, John Cabot was born Giovanni Cabato. So names me very little. Skenderbeg has the following names... Gjergj Kastrioti (alb), Jorgos Kastriotis (grk), Giorgio Castrioti (Ita). All depends on who is doing the writing.

I do get the feeling that he is less that loving towards Albanians and very much enamored with Vlach/Hellenic culture. Best part of this book is it's a book and all sources must be read to better understand a subject. And I give him credit for having tried to be unbias, but it does show. There are points where he tries to be fair and steps away from some of the insane biased statements out there

As one with a lifelong interest in the Balkans, and one who actually got to travel there too, I am always on the lookout for good books on the area. So, I was happy to find CURTAIN CALLS in a bookstore in Nova Scotia. But, I'm afraid it is a little too light and chatty for me. I can't say that it is not well-written, no, the author has a pleasant style, but it's rather insubstantial, breezy, and more than a little gossipy, with far too much information about his various guides and mentors in the then rigidly controlled Balkan societies. If you like that sort of apolitical travelogue, pretty much blow by blow, then this book could be for you. Secondly, the whole area has changed so much in the last 20-odd years since Gardiner wrote, that the kind of information a would-be traveller could glean from this book would be well-nigh useless. I feel that a person who wants to know what the Balkans are like today---as well as one who wants to know what they were like in the 1970s---could do better elsewhere.

I found this book about Albania in a french book-store. The book contains a lot of information about Albanian history, art and architecture which fills half of the book. The other half of the book is the tourism part with descriptions of Albanian towns, churches and ruins. There are a lot of beautiful photographs in this book. This book only describes Albania in a historical and architectural way. Unfortunately you will not find a lot of information about current social circumstances, economy, transportation possibilities, hotels, restaurants, customs and all the other things about practical life. There is just one page covering this, but it is outdated information.

...That someone did something about the misinformation and propaganda that surrounds this "issue"
The propagandists of FYROM need to understand that there is no way for them to get access to the Aegean (The desire for which, i might add, is even mentioned in their constitution.)
To say that the Macedonians (not the skopjans who CALL themselves Macedonians) and Alexander the Great are not Greek is as ludicrous as saying that the people living in Texas are not Americans..

A very interesting book, yet with some weaknesses! "Not written by a native" gives this book more of a third side glance advantage, yet it does not provide a profound information of someone who has lived for decades among the Macedonians, Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians etc. The Republic of Macedonia is a politically independent sovereign country with internationally recognized borders and peoples. What makes a "state" a STATE?
Land/Territory, Population, Sovereignty (and I would add National Identity). The Republic of Macedonia has it all. This truth is undeniable. The ones who deny it, have no clue about politics and should start with the book Basic Politics 101.

Recent events in the Balkans have shown that due to the ethnological, geopolitical and historical complexity of the region, serious in depth analysis is of paramount importance in understanding the truth. Apart from the thousands that have died as a result of the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990's, another victim has been the truth, as is the case in most wars, especially in the 20th century.
The truth is based on undisputed facts (dates, events etc), and in relation to opinion, the truth always lies somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, the first "reviewer," instead of treating this book for what it is, i.e. a valuable and objective source, they dismiss it on the grounds that it does not serve their interests. The "reviewer" states: "If Macedonia has always been Greek, why did the Greek government deny its existence until the 1980's". The question is how can Greece, of all countries, deny the existence of her own history? A rather childish and yet dangerous reaction coming as a result of Yugoslav communist propaganda and indoctrination aiming at conditioning the majority Bulgarian-Slavic population of South Serbia into believing they belong to a fictitious "Macedonian" nationality. What's next? Did the Vikings build the Parthenon, were the Spartans African spearmen or was Alexander the Great a Slav?
Let's be serious. In a democracy all voices should be heard instead of being immediately disregarded on the basis of their origin. One cannot and should not silence another just because they disagree with them! At the same time, however, the truth should be protected at all cost and not be left to be sacrificed in pursuit of political agendas.
This book is written by someone who is not a native of the region, and yet it provides a valuable insight in the study of Macedonia. It is a "must" for any serious historian or political analyst interested in the Balkan region.