Sarajevo: A Biography

Indelibly marked as the site of the assassination of Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984, but by 1992 was a city at war, its residents subjected to what became the longest urban siege of the modern era. Sarajevans showed extraordinary courage under fire as they struggled to preserve a treasured way of life. Robert J. Donia examines the city's history from its founding in the fifteenth century to the present. In its Ottoman heyday Sarajevo was synonymous with learning, its skyline punctuated by the minarets and domes of mosques and madrasas. Under Tito it was a haven of multiculturalism where Yugoslavs lived and worked together, irrespective of their ethnic or religious affiliations. The Siege of Sarajevo (1992-5) and its aftermath receives particular attention in Donia's compelling account, the most detailed to appear in English to date.