Answer

Given that Dr. Mira Markovic is the wife of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, perhaps one could have expected from this book a diatribe against the West, a propagandistic tool of Serbian nationalism. If such is looked for, it is not to be found here. For an interpretation of why the multifaceted ethnic and religious Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has broken down into a strife which has baffled Europe and the world - for this reason alone, Answer is worth reading. Mira Markovic laments that the southern Slavic peoples had much more in common, historically and culturally, than that which divides them. She bemoans the fact that the works of Miroslav Krleza can no longer be studied in Serbia and those of Janko Veselinovic and Djure Jaksic in Croatia. She laments the passing of Serbia into nationalism and chauvinism, greed and egoism as opposed to socialism and altruism. She is varying in her levels of criticism of Serbia and the Serbian establishment - but she is at all times critical. This is a book of the Left, and also a critique of the same. With the Left, worldwide, in disarray it is refreshing to read such an eloquent advocate of left-wing ideas and socialism. Those of the old, humane, humanitarian, utopian, justice-seeking Left will find much to reflect on, much to appreciate, much to agree on, and maybe even a cause for hope.