After a trip to France and Germany with my best friend from college, our husbands being so nice as to let us go traveling without them, I am now even more determined to go back. With this book in hand and perhaps a few videos on the Alps, you will be planning one of the most memorable vacations you can imagine.

I definitely want to visit the mountains in the Alps in France, Switzerland, and Austria. I have a renewed interest after watching "The Sound of Music." This majestic mountain range has divided Europe into a multitude of different cultures, traditions, languages and climates.

You will want to visit Salzburg, walk in pristine meadows, spend the day in a mountain village or take a boat ride in a lake. I am now dreaming of which cozy hotel I want to stay in. The cuisine is said to be hearty, the air crisp and you will want to take a cable car ride up to the top of the mountains to view the panorama.

What impresses me most about this area is the castles. Yes, even Disneyland has a castle which was inspired by Europe's famous castle in the Alps. It is incredible. If you take a trip to one castle in your life, visit this one! Visit the fanciful Neuschwantein Castle! The interior is rich, painted...just the most beautiful and elaborate decorating you could imagine.

If you do buy this book and decide to take a trip, save up for all the beautiful wood carvings, music boxes, clocks, etc. What will impress you most is the flowers, they are everywhere. The pace of life is slower, and the buildings have artwork covering them.

The region of Leavenworth, WA reminds me most of the Alps. So, if you want to take a short trip to see if you would like the Alps, try Leavenworth and I think you will be packing your bags for a longer trip. It is just breathtaking there.

If you can't get overseas then take lots of "treadmill trips." I love the one called "Journey through The Alps, Roads to Oberammergau," but I can't find it at Amazon. It is set to the music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Handel and other great European composers. You also get to visit Zurich, Luzern, Munich, Zermatt and other Alpine cities and towns. I truly hope you can watch at least one video. With the book and videos, you will be packing those bags. Just take a warm coat and walking shoes!

This compilation of the best hiking trails in the Alps will give readers plenty of ideas for planning an unforgettable vacation filled with scenic beauty. All aspects of the trip are covered including accommodations, what to bring along, equipment and locale information. A vast list of tourist resources is also included. Although targeted towards Americans, this book is handy for any nationality.

The reason I deducted a star is due to the fact that some is the information is outdated. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to enjoy the wondrous beauty of the Alps.

Glenny's book is a detailed guide to the places and people in dynamic conflict at the beginning of the "Third Balkan War". From Milan Babic and his hate-crazed Serb followers in the Krajina, to the March 1991 opposition rally in the streets of Belgrade, to the appalling destruction of Vukovar and Mostar, Glenny focuses on the personalities of the leaders and the people who trapped themselves in a cynical and inevitable march towards self-destruction. Greedy, corrupt leaders vaulted to the fore by tapping into a subconscious vein of popular nationalism. They were followed over the edge by unthinking adherents characterized by a uniquely Balkan combination of ruthlessness, self-righteousness, and utter inhumanity. It is good to ride with Glenny as he travels through a country in the process of explosive suicide if only to remind ourselves that even in Europe civilization is but a thin facade masking deep hatreds and combustive violence.

Glenny's central thesis, that Serb hegemony over Croats in a united Yugoslavia and Croat hegemony over Serbs in an independent Croatia will always lead to tensions is incontrovertible. His corollary, that wicked self-serving leaders are able to exploit these tensions and turn them to violence in the absence of a reasoned political debate and vigorous interest by the international communtiy, is an indictment of the Slavs' chronic inability to compromise.

Could Yugoslavia have split up peacefully? Probably, but not after popular elections gave power to leaders such as Tudjman and Milosevic. It is a fantastical jump to posit that Yugoslavs could have engaged in a peaceful separation on the Czech/Slovak model, because the first criterion for such a process is enlightened leadership in Zagreb and Belgrade. This does not exist. There was nothing inevitable about the Third Balkan War, we all saw it coming like a train wreck and it happened all the same. Glenny's first-hand account written in an engaging prose that combines journalism and historical analysis is an excellent guide to these tragic events.

Misha Glenny is an expert on the wars in ex-Jugoslavia. An Englishman, and a speaker of Serbo-croat, Glenny takes his reader through the mess that was the Yugoslav civil war, with eyewitness accounts that display both humanity and at other times extreme brutality. One thing in particular I must commend Glenny on is his refusal to classify the Serbs as the only bad guys, or the only instigators of the war (as much Western media has done). He places blame on various players: Milosevic, Serb paramilitaries, Bosnian politicians, Franjo Tudman and his nationalitic cronies, Germany, etc... This book invokes great sympathy in its readers for all the victims of the war:Muslims, Yugoslavs, Serbs, and Croats. He usually carefully distinguishes between the Serb-dominated Yugoslav Army and the nationalistic Serb new-Chetnik gangs who were the primary brutes involved in civilian atrocities; an important distinction. However, if you do not already have a general knowledge of the region's history, this book may at times be a bit confusing. Although many of his statements on Kosovo are innacurate, I don't find that to be highly relevant to the overall book. Highly recommended!

Having worked in Bosnia in the late '80s, this book has particular relevance for me. I know the place names, the people, the locations and the language. Those 4 characteristics seem essential for gleaning a lot from this book, since the events it describes, as Mr Glenny readily admits, were felt to be so confusing for "Western" television audiences that some events were at times misrepresented altogether.

Irrespective of that requirement for basic (historical) knowledge about the conflict, I believe that this is a superlative example not solely of journalism on the go, but of weaving together the actions of the various actors - people, governments, movements, acronyms - into a coherent frame. To say that "sanctions should not be imposed on either Serbia or Croatia" undermines much of the political rhetoric spewed out by Western nations, explicitly recognising the futility of NATO or anyone else do to ANYthing about the multitude of conflcits that took place simultaneously: we can't do anything about it, so lets impose some sanctions.

This is not a book for the novice, however, since novices cannot be expected to understand the wealth of detail at any more than the most superficial level. Unfortunately, such is the nature of popular journalism, TV viewers will never be anything but novices - shocked by images for a few seconds, but not really understanding WHY anything happens. Unfortunately, it seems that politicians didn't understand why either, and many of the problems resulted from inappropriate actions taken in consequence.

Since there are so few books in the English language that deal with Slovenia at all, "Independent Slovenia" is a relatively solid introduction to the country and its more recent history, politics and economics. Most of the book's contributions are written by Slovene scholars (historians, sociologists, economists, etc.), so readers are given an insight into contemporary Slovenian perspectives. Even though a book of this type compels the authors to brevity, the first three chapters dealing with Slovenia's more recent as well as earlier history were still a little too brief for my tastes; much is left unsaid. Another problem is that several of the contributions are written in an extremely academic and dry style, making them a chore to read - this is particularly true of the chapter on trade unions (by Tonci Kuzmanic) and, surprisingly, the punk scene during the 1980s (by Gregor Tomc). These pieces, as well as chapters on women's issues and the economy, also deal too much with more theoretical aspects, with only scant attention given to how these movements and problems were reflected on Slovenian society in general. For example, the chapter on punk would have been much more interesting if the author included more extensive descriptions and analyses of the more popular bands - as it is, he mentions the names of one or two bands and leaves it at that. This indicates another major problem with many of the book's contributions: they tend to assume some prior knowledge of Slovenia. The editors should have also insisted on chapters that dealt specifically with the magazine Mladina, which was the sounding board for political change in Slovenia in the late 1980s (during the so-called 'Slovenian Spring'), and with President Milan Kucan, who very ably presided over Slovenia's transition from Yugoslav federal republic to independent statehood. Mladina's role is only touched upon in a few articles, while Kucan is only mentioned twice - both times in an otherwise very interesting chapter by former (and now once more current) Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel on the political events surrounding Slovenia's push for independence. In hindsight, the chapters dealing with various aspects of Slovenia's economy in the post-independence period seem overly pessimistic, although they provide a strong analysis of the complex structural problems faced by all the post-socialist countries of Europe.

I ordered this map, but am returning it as it doesn't seem to offer any greater detail than a typical rental car map. While it is larger than the maps in my guide books, it lacks detail. For example, I couldn't see how to get to the Skocjan Caves or Predjama Castle in Slovenia - two fairly major "sights." My recommendation: use the free viamichelin.com site instead.

I expected a history book, but this is a book of one family's struggle written in a measured poetry form. It does bring home the hard life and wish for freedom, but poignant leaving of the land they called home.