Louis Proyect review of Diana Johnstone's "Fools' Crusade"

A couple of weeks ago, American Marxist Louis Proyect left a short and rather cryptic comment, on my blog. I was curious to see what I might have written to draw his attention, since while he has written from time to time on the Balkans (from a predictably far-left Serbian-apologist perspective), he hasn't been particularly active in the Balkan revisionist project. Then I stumbled across his review of Diana Johnstone's "Fools' Crusade from the "Swans" website.

I had originally planned to consider this review at length, but considering that I devoted several months of my life to critiquing the original book, and considering that I have been so busy lately I have waited over a week to begin this review (despite the date of this post, I am actually writing this on Wednesday, March 19), I thought it best to simply make a note of his review and move on.

I am not sure how much of this chapter-by-chapter review represents Proyect's own "understanding" of the breakdown of Yugoslavia as opposed to simply a synopsis of Johnstone's text. I suspect that the distinction is pointless--they are clearly drinking from the same well, although Proyect's take on matters is more explicitly Marxist. He is honest enough to label Johnstone's portrayal of ethnic Albanians as "unsentimental," which is putting it rather mildly.

There may be little point in linking to this article now that I've chosen to pass on an extended rebuttal (at least for now), except an yet another piece of evidence that an alternate narrative of the Yugoslav wars has indeed taken root in certain intellectual circles. I mention this because I was reading the introduction to Christopher Hedges seemingly dreadful I Don't Believe in Atheists out of curiosity, and I was struck by Hedges angry denial that religion played any part in the Yugoslav wars; rather, he insisted that they were entirely a product of the economic decline of Yugoslavia. When a somewhat-mainstream liberal is parroting the Susan Woodward/Diana Johnstone line, we know we have a problem.

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I hope to return to more regular and substantive blogging in the very near future.