ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how contested identities continue to shape European societies. It demonstrates that there is significant analytical purchase to be gained from examining national identities and the conflicts they have enabled inside and among European societies. The book shows that the nation-state and nationalism have proven remarkably salient, even when many scholars and politicians have stated its growing obsolescence in a globalizing world. It also explores the disintegration of Yugoslavia and its fragmentation into the newly independent nation-states of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Kosovo. New nations continue to emerge in Europe, as was dramatically witnessed in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The book assesses the elements and tensions of Yugoslavian identity.
