“Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War,” by Peter Maass. Vintage Books, 1996. My personal favorite among the many books on Bosnia written by war correspondents. Maass, an American who covered the early years of the war, delivers an exquisitely human account of the conflict and the people whose lives were swallowed up in it – exposing his own emotional frailties in the face of war with unflinching honesty. Through it all, Maass wrestles for meaning in the midst of madness, ultimately creating a work of witness that still resonates today.

Click here to read the update Maass wrote for the New Republic in 1998, entitled, “Back to Bosnia: A War Correspondent Returns.” Thanks to Maass, who kindly offered it for use on the “Aftermath” site.

“Blood and Vengeance: One Family’s Story of the War in Bosnia,” by Chuck Sudetic. Penguin Books, 1998. The first book I read on the war, “Blood and Vengeance” traces the story of several generations of one Bosnian family (relatives of Sudetic by marriage), culminating in the tragedy of Srebrenica, where Serb forces killed as many as 8,000 Muslim men and women. Through interviews and research, American journalist Sudetic has painstakingly reconstructed this family tale; his accounts of the family’s experience in the U.N. “safe haven” of Srebrenica are particularly illuminating, as no journalists were able to report from there during the war.

“The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia,” by Tim Judah. An English journalist well respected for his coverage of the Balkans and the wars there, Judah has written an illuminating portrait of the Serbs and the forces that have shaped the Serbs’ identity. A very even-handed account, the book explores the history, religion and nationalism of the Serbs – and the role these played in creating the mentality that led many Serbs to commit barbaric acts under the leadership of warmongers like Slobodan Milosevic.

“My War Gone By, I Miss It So,” by Andrew Lloyd. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999. A memoir written by an English journalist struggling with a heroin addiction – and an addiction to the frontlines of war. This is a more personal book than the others on this list, recounting some of Lloyd’s own personal struggles with his father and with drugs. It is also a forceful, hair-raising account of the actual war, where Lloyd spent as much time on the frontlines as possible. It is particularly interesting to follow Lloyd’s early non-committal sense of war as adventure, which gradually flares into a passionate empathy with Bosnian forces and their struggle to maintain a multi-ethnic country in the face of Croat and Serb aggression.

“Bosnia: A Short History,” by Noel Malcolm. Papermac, 1994. An extremely useful book, which places the war in context, both historically and politically. You need to know history to understand the Balkans, and Malcolm’s book is an excellent take on the subject.

“Endgame, The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica: Europe’s Worst Massacre Since World War II,” by David Rohde. Rohde, who covered the later part of the war for The Christian Science Monitor, won the Pulitzer Prize for his articles documenting the existence of mass graves – proof of the Srebrenica massacre, carried out by Serbs in July, 1995. Here he recreates what happened over the course of ten days – July 6 through July 16 – drawing on detailed accounts from several eyewitnesses, including members of the Dutch peacekeeping forces who were on duty when Srebrenica was overrun by Serbs, as well as Serbs and Muslims.

“Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West,” by David Reiff. Simon and Schuster, 1995. Virtually every Western reporter who covered the war – including those who authored the books on this list – came to be a scathing critic of the role the West played in the Bosnian conflict. Reiff is a journalist and sociologist whose critique of Western foreign policy towards Bosnia is a particularly devastating one. His book is well worth reading, as an understanding of the role of the West – and its appeasement of Slobodan Milosevic -- is crucial to making sense of what happened in Bosnia, and to understanding why the war went on as long as it did.

“Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia,” by Rebecca West. Penguin Books, 1994. Originally published in the early 1940s, this huge book was written as the world moved towards World War II. West’s account of her travels in Yugoslavia and her observations of its people and culture are generally regarded as one of the most important books written on the subject. Though her admiration of the Serbs is out of step with what occurred during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, her book was widely read by war correspondents who wanted to better understand the region, and is still relevant today.

“The Bridge on the Drina,” by Ivo Andric. This novel, by the Nobel-Prize-winning Bosnian author, uses the centuries-old bridge as a centerpiece for weaving tales about Bosnia and its people, from the time of the Ottoman Empire up to the First World War. In 1992, the beautiful stone bridge was the site of another chapter in Bosnian history, as local Serbs executed some 2,000 of their Muslim neighbors, often shooting them as they were forced to jump off the bridge.