Robert D. Greenberg, Language and identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croatian and its disintegration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. x, 188.

This book is an important contribution to the field of Serbo-Croatian and Balkan studies, as well as to general sociolinguistics. In a world that is reconfiguring its identities quite drastically, Greenberg targets one of the most complex, sensitive, and politically charged areas, that of the former Yugoslavia. The whole book attends closely to the unfolding drama of a people whose linguistic fate has followed various controversial attempts to keep the Serbo-Croatian language united, ultimately leading to its disintegration and the emergence of the languages of the relatively recently established new national entities. These are the outcome of the breakup of Yugoslavia: Serbia-Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina (not to mention the predominantly non-Slavic-speaking ethno-geographical units).