[RepublicanHippy]

"This strikes me as a pretty simpleminded history of the Middle East by a typically undereducated reporter who has probably now read three or four books on the subject."

Yeh, it looks like one of the books he read is "Balkan Ghosts", hence his title. "Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History" is an excellent read for those trying to understand politics and history and "ancient hatreds" in the Balkans and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Another good book to read is "The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts after Communism" by Tina Rosenberg.

[a_Turk]

Check out "The Great Game" and "Like Hidden Fire" by Peter Hopkirk. Makes use of a lot of de-classified British Secret Service documents.