The bridge betrayed : religion and genocide in Bosnia /

In this unique exploration of the religious dimensions of genocide in Bosnia, Sells focuses on a national mythology "that portrays Slavic Muslims as Christ killers and race traitors." Sells asks but does not fully reply to the question, "How could members of a religion which began six centuries after the death of Jesus be responsible for his death?" The remainder of Sells's book analyzes and documents the genocide that was committed against Bosnian Muslims as a result of this ideology. Despite the appropriate moral tone of this work and the excellent documentation of Muslim suffering, the central focus on one narrow aspect of religious ideology remains problematic. Sells fails to explore the differences between Catholic Croat and Orthodox Serb attitudes toward the Muslims, or to employ the sociological concept of "civil religion" to explain how a religious ideology becomes politicized. In addition to the Croats and Serbs, many other Western peoples exhibit racist behavior toward Muslims, but not for reasons having to do with killing Christ. Sells fails to explore the role of religion in Western appeasement of Serbian aggression in Bosnia. More than a third of the book consists of extensive notes and index. All levels. S. G. Mestrovic Texas A&M University

A Serbian American professor of religion, Sells (Mystical Languages of Unsaying, Univ. of Chicago, 1994) explores all angles surrounding the recent systematic destruction of the Bosnian Muslims. He lays down a solid background of the origins of the war and explains the Serbian attitude that religion equals nationality, which shows why the Serbs believe the Muslims are traitorous to their country. Sells also describes Croatia's role in the conflict. Along with some fascinating reports and details on the genocide, he spends the final two chapters blasting the UN, NATO, and the West for not becoming more involved in stopping the crimes against the Bosnians. His work is recommended for all academic and large public libraries for its ability to explain this confusing war clearly.‘Jill Jaracz, Professionals Lib. Service, Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A penetrating argument that the heady mix of religion and modern nationalism are at the heart of the Bosnian catastrophe. Sells is a professor of religion (Haverford Coll.) of Serbian descent. Here he joins these personal and professional interests, although he sides not with the Serbs but with the Bosnian Muslims. His book is both a condemnation of anti-Muslim religious stereotyping by Serbs and Croats, and an impassioned argument that the genocide in Bosnia is ``grounded in religious symbols.'' He is forthright in his accusations, charging that Western policymakers failed by denying Bosnia the right to self-defense and by neglecting their ``moral and legal duty'' to uphold the Geneva Convention's call for action against genocide. Sells is determined to debunk the popular misconception of ``ancient Balkan hatreds'' and to replace it with what he perceives to be the driving force of the war: explicitly modern, anti-Muslim religious and nationalist mythologies in which Muslims are represented as Christ killers and in which the Bosnians who long ago converted to Islam are seen as race traitors (because all Slavs, supposedly, should be Christian). However, while religion explains much in the former Yugoslavia, it does not explain all. Political, economic, historical, and social factors, though they're often overemphasized, have their place in an examination of Yugoslavia's collapse. Moreover, the war in Bosnia cannot be isolated from the larger conflict in the former Yugoslavia. And while Sells convincingly exposes the slander, falsehoods, and misinformation about Muslims that Serbs and Croats accept as true, he sheds no light on how and why they came to believe in these myths. Still, Sells's well-written, impassioned, and informed book represents a deepening of the ongoing discourse about the collapse of Yugoslavia.