A Concise History of Albania

Description

A Concise History of Albania charts the history of Albania and its people, within their Balkan and European contexts. It shows the country's journey from its ancient past, still shrouded in mystery and controversy, through its difficult transition from a particularly brutal form of communism to an evolving form of democracy and a market economy. Bernd Fischer and Oliver Schmitt challenge some of the traditional narratives concerning the origins of the Albanians, and the relations between Albanians and their Balkan neighbours. This authoritative and up-to-date single-volume history analyses the political, social, economic, and cultural developments which led to the creation of the Albanian state and the modern nation, as well as Albania's more recent experience with authoritarianism, war, and communism. It greatly contributes to our understanding of the challenges facing contemporary Albanians, as well as the issues confronting the region as a whole as it attempts to grapple with one of the last remaining significant ethnic issues in the Balkans.

Bernd J. Fischer is Professor Emeritus of History at Purdue University, Fort Wayne. He is the author or editor of numerous works on Albania and the Balkans, most notably King Zog and the Struggle for Stability in Albania (1984), Albania at War 1939-1945 (1999), and Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of Southeast Europe (2006). He is a foreign member of the Albanian Academy of Sciences. Oliver Jens Schmitt is Professor of Southeast European History at the University of Vienna. He is the author of numerous monographs in German on Balkan history including Skanderbeg (2009), The Albanians (2012), and The Balkans in the 20th Century: A Post-Imperial history (2019). Since 2017 he has served as President of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences and as head of the Balkan studies department at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosova.