St Antony's
2 total works
International Perspectives on the Yugoslav Conflict
by Alex Danchev and Thomas Halverson
Published 1 April 1996
International Perspectives on the Yugoslav Conflict is a collection of important new work by the leading authorities in the field. Unusually, this is an international investigation of an international conflict. The result is both profound and provocative - the most stimulating and the most far-reaching exploration of the subject yet to appear.
Specialness is semaphor. It needs to be decoded and analyzed. Otherwise it is unintelligible. 'It is special. It just is. And that's that' - Margaret Thatcher, in characteristic mode. Yet scholars have not done much better. Too often in the literature of the special relationship attitude trumps analysis. These essays represent a consolidated attempt to go further. They investigate the who and what and how of this extraordinary relationship. They focus on the personalities and strategies of the wartime and post-war period. They examine the meaning and demeaning of an idea - the idea of a boon companion in a hostile world - and they ask if we can, after all, specify specialness.