Shadowplay: Behind the Lines and Under Fire: The Inside Story of Europes Last War by Tim Marshall

Shadowplay: Behind the Lines and Under Fire: The Inside Story of Europes Last War Reviews

• 
  Chris Steeden

  The author, Tim Marshall, was a reporter for Sky News. He tells us that this book was first published in 2002 but in Serbo-Croat but now it has been translated.
  
  It is Oct-1998 and the Kosovo War is in full swing. I was really looking forward to the boots on the ground war reporting, but that was not really the case, and this was not really that kind of war. It was not like he could embed himself in a platoon of British soldiers on the ground as there were none.
  
  It feels like you have been dropped into the middle of the book rather than at the beginning. A lot of information and names are thrown at you without any context or summation of what is going on and why we are where we are. From the British strategy to NATO to the Serbs to the KLA it all feels a bit of complex mess. Hang in there. I made a list of names and positions as I went. Essentially the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) ‘intend to liberate Kosovo from Serbian rule’. They want independence. They see the Serbs as the oppressor.
  
  After a while the pieces of the jigsaw do slot into place. This is about 20% into the book. Initially he is looking more at the role of outside countries, specifically Britain and the US who are there to monitor the situation. They certainly do not want to get directly involved in the war itself. It seems that the Americans were doing a little more than monitoring though. They were providing a little training to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and providing equipment like satellite phones. Duncan Bullivant an ex-British army officer said ‘The US agenda was clear. When the time was right, they were going to use the KLA to provide the solution to the political problem.’ All in-conjunction with trying to get peace agreements to stick.
  
  Into 1999 and the war escalates and NATO begin bombing the Serbs to bring an end to the war. There are some horrific stories of collateral damage and mistakes from the NATO side with civilians being killed and maimed. He takes us through the war in three parts. ‘Before’, ‘During’ and ‘After’. The ‘After’ being a detailed account of how Milošević is toppled. ‘Revolution!’.
  
  The book is very interesting without it really being a page-turner. It is not dull but not dreadfully exciting. Will you learn stuff? Absolutely, I’ll take that all day long. If you are after the normal war correspondent type book, then you need to steer clear of this one. Yes, he does go over the bombings, but he is looking more at the politics of the region and the big-hitting outsiders that try and make their influence.
• 
  Annikky

  3+ In hindsight, this was probably not the right place to start my grand Getting to Know the Balkans Better project - it very much focuses on the Kosovo War and doesn’t provide much context. It is also a personal account, which makes the structure somewhat messy, but also results in a very readable book, as Marshall shares interesting tidbits and insights from his sources. I am no expert, but I feel his take shows more understanding of the Serbian side (without condoning the horrors, of course) and is more critical of the Americans than the established narrative. The plus is for Marshall’s style, which I enjoy, even though some might find it too light.
• 
  Mark

  A somewhat cheeky republished book (originally written in 2002), no doubt to capitalise on Marshall's success with his recent geo-political work. It is however a decent read.
  
  If you're looking for an overview of the who/what/why of the Balkans War this probably isn't the book for you, however, if you're after an 'on the ground' look at what went on with regards to civilians, military and media, this is the book for you.
  
  No quite up to the Prisoners of Geography/Divided level, but a good read regardless.
• 
  razlaz9000

  Only for the insiders:
  
  Oh, the memories of being bombed when you’re 14! I remember how deeply hurt I was when I realized the miserable war-zone country on everyone’s TV’s is my country now. Tim was the face of that - I vividly remember watching Sky news on satellite on the first night of bombing, trying to understand what he was saying (my English wasn’t so good back then) and wondering if where I live was going to turn into a Hollywood war movie scenery. Tim’s book clearly depicts how pointless and egotistical the whole affair was from both sides. Hating Albright as much as Milošević makes sense again.
  It also reveals the inconvenient truth of how much the foreign intelligence services had to do with both making the case for bombing (KVM being run by CIA, the Rambouillet ultimatum etc.) as well as organizing the opposition to topple Milošević. Is that democracy? Serbia is in the same situation today with Vučić regarding freedoms and abuse, but no one seems to care, because of one small difference: he suits the West.
  Finally, having spent 10 years in the region, and having used so few of the local words, it’s amazing how many spelling mistakes Tim manage to make in this book (Batjanica, Gotev je, persistently writing dj instead of đ and many more).
  Important contribution to putting together the 20th century history of the region, and a book definitely not for the novices on the subject.
• 
  Jack Burrows

  At first I found this a difficult book to break into, as you're thrown right in at the end of the late 1990s after the breakup of Yugoslavia and at the dawn of the Kosovo War, with very little context for how you're there or what has happened, or who the major players are. Context is limited and drip-fed and I really feel that Marshall would benefit from having a chapter explaining more about this complex conflict.
  
  Once Marshall gets going though, the book becomes a rapid-fire flick before, during and after the Kosovo War. As ever, the author's political knowledge presides throughout and creates a holistic and highly informative piece on the intricate workings of this war. Shadowplay takes you into the shadows of this work, behind the fighting and the bloodshed, to outline and assess the motives of leaders and key players.
  
  This does create a sense of emotional distancing, as this book focuses on the politics rather than the people affected on the ground, and it therefore runs in a different vein of war correspondence and journalism to the likes of Marie Colvin. However, when read interspersed with Colvin's collected writings on Kosovo, I found my view of the conflict enhanced dramatically.
  
  So to conclude, it's a great book if you're looking to understand the complexities around 'the art of war and conflict' but if you want the on-the-ground experience of the people who lived and suffered through it, look to the work of Marie Colvin.
• 
  AnnaG

  This would be more interesting if Tim Marshall had written a history of the war and put it into the sweeping historical context as he does in Prisoners of Geography, instead this is an OK war reporters memoir with the bare bones of what happened.
  
  In light of recent events in Ukraine, there are some very worrying passages - worth a read for anyone tempted to warmonger at the moment.
• 
  Max Berendsen

  An engaging and very vivid account of the Kosovo War. In this book Tim Marshall gives a full account of his time as a war correspondent for Sky News in late 1990's Yugoslavia.
  
  Having earlier read Marshall's Prisoners of Geography in which he impressed me by being able to explain complex geopolitical issues in plain language to a broad audience, I was not dissapointed after reading Shadowplay.
  
  The book provides the reader with exclusive "behind the scenes" coverage of diplomatic games, psychological warfare and military operations in combination with showing the human side of war, mainly in the objective descriptions of suffering on the Serbian, as well as the Kosovar Albanian side.
  
  Though at certain points maybe a bit simplified, Shadowplay gives an engaging and lively account of a very recent, yet already quite forgotten but still very relevant episode of European history.
• 
  Donal Meaney

  Was engaging and consistently held my interest was exactly what I needed to reignite my love of reading
• 
  Daniel Hrenak

  Tejto knihe chýba to, čo majú všetky ostatné jeho knihy, s ktorými som mal doteraz skúsenosť: štruktúra a prehľadnosť. Vidieť, že píše osobné zážitky a vloženie sa do problematiky. Akurát mi to v tejto knihe nie úplne pasuje. Je tam toho tak veľa, že som sa občas strácal a hoc to môže byť smutné, aj nudil. Na získanie obrazu o tom, prečo bola vojna v Juhoslávii, ako prebiehala, čo kto spravil zle a prečo tam bolo málo dobrého je to ok, ale teda... nie je to Marshall ako ho poznáte z iných kníh.
• 
  Ryan

  Style & engagement: (4/5)
Marshall has a casual writing style that I thoroughly enjoyed, although it seemed callous at moments, especially when writing about the devastating losses experienced in the war. However, with that casual writing style came a matter-of-fact, unvarnished description of the events and politics that shaped this conflict. Often histories written by journalists have such a stuffy air to them that they get extremely dry, and Marshall breaks that pattern with this book. I ultimately found his style engaging and interesting—even useful. Writing style is definitely a plus of this book.
  
  Intellectual rigor & honesty: (4/5)
I listened to the audiobook and haven’t followed up on whatever endnotes he may have concluded. Marshall makes a lot of claims about the attitudes and thinking of individuals—both political leaders, diplomats, and civilians—that I suppose could be difficult to corroborate. But when comparing his general historical claims to reading I have done in the past, he seems to be in line with most narratives of the Yugoslav wars. He does go the extra mile on a number of occasions throughout the book by describing events from multiple perspectives. This was especially useful when the topic being discussed was controversial or lacked corroboration. If you start this book thinking the NATO bombings in Serbia were an unmitigated good, Marshall will likely complicate your view on the subject. He helps the reader understand the terror civilians in all countries involved likely felt day-to-day, regardless of their country’s role in the conflict; and NATO’s flawed execution of its mission appears to be a substantial source of that terror.
  

  Appropriate medium & duration: (5/5)
As mentioned above, I thought the book was very engaging, so I think it’s just the right medium and duration to tell this story.
  
  
New & useful information: (4/5)
I really appreciate that this book exists. Much has been written about the Yugoslav wars leading up to Dayton, but there are far fewer books on the subsequent ongoing conflict in Kosovo. Kosovo doesn’t seem to have received the attention it is due, so I’m glad when a book published in 2019 is focused on it. Marshall also documented some of the political machinations happening in Serbia and among the NATO-allied countries that I hadn’t heard before. He sort of yada-yada-yada’d the last 18-or-so years of Balkan history, but I don’t blame him. As he put it, the rest of the world has been distracted from the Balkans, perhaps justifiably so. I would love it if his next book examined the political landscape of the Balkans in the 21st century.
  
  
Comparison to similar books: (4/5)
This book compares favorably to other historical accounts/quasi-memoirs from journalists. I’ve been disappointed by books written by other journalists due to their dry, then-this-then-that-then-this-then-that style writing. Stylistically, Marshall is a cut above his peers. I’d highly recommend it.
  
  
4.2/5 overall
• 
  Lexy

  I’ve heard so much about the Kosovo conflict from Serbian sources, both official and anecdotal, so I wanted to read something written by an impartial third party to gain some perspective. This is a British reporters account of the conflict in Kosovo and it was so eye opening. Unlike much of the western media, the picture he paints of the conflict confirms a lot of what Serbs say about being set up and exploited as pawns in a game played by the US, UK and other powerful nations, while still tempering that with an open look at the things Serbia did wrong. If you believe that the government and media are faithfully reporting world events to the public, then this book will make you think twice and hopefully open your eyes to the fact that everyone has an angle and a motive. Highly recommend!
• 
  Leona Jasmin

  As someone without an in-depth knowledge about the former Yugoslavia and its turbulent conflicts, this book was thoroughly confusing to begin with. For reference, I was born in 2000 so never heard about this conflict as it happened. This book is split between 'Before', 'During' and 'After' the conflict and the 'Before' section drops you straight into whats going on, and not in a completely positive way. Many acronyms are used with only one reference to their full name- I had to keep flipping to the index because I could not keep track of who was who and what they were doing. This is the complete opposite of what I've become accustomed to with Marshall- usually he writes to the less versed.
  However, in the 'During' and 'After' sections of the book, Marshall's easy-to-read style returns which shifted the book from being something I couldn't read without having to recheck meanings every few pages to quite an enjoyable account of what Marshall witnessed. There's statistics in there and accounts as to who died when, but as an on ground reporter, you get to learn more about the intricacies of war other than solely bloodshed. However, as he was a corespondent, there's not too much emotion when it came to the conflict, more an account with the odd humour in the less dire parts (such as an interaction with the then journalist, now Prime Minister Johnson).
  This book was originally published in Serbo-Croat in 2002 but was more recently republished, adding an epilogue as so why we hear so little about the region these days. I found this quite a simple but effective way of tying things up and it was then that I noticed the evolution in his writing style.
  I'd recommend this book to someone with a background knowledge in the conflict who wants to read about it from a perspective other than just accounting for the conflicts and death. Marshall has quite a pleasant writing style but the beginning is too fast-paced for someone without much knowledge of the conflict, hence not giving this book a 5* rating.
• 
  Tom McCluskey

  Great book for those getting into the black hole of the Balkans for the first time. It doesn’t give much context to the Balkan wars of the early 90s but that’s not Tim’s fault, it’s mine for being a philistine.
  
  The characters within this book working with Tim are all great and add a positive human aspect to a book which focuses on an inhumane regime. Show me someone who doesn’t love Jakša and I’ll show you a liar.
  
  I would probably recommend this to Lucy, it’s less heavy on the geopolitics than I thought it would be and I think she’d appreciate the excellent storytelling of Tim.
• 
  Sarandis Kouvousis

  Si vis pacem, para bellum.
  
  I picked up this read immediately as Putin started to place troops near Ukraine borders.
  
  A nice reminder of how thin are the lines to be passed for warfare to become a realistic scenario.
• 
  Henry Collicutt

  Really fascinating history from someone who was (mostly) on the ground during Kosovo War both in Kosovo and Serbia. It did seem to assume some sort of understanding of the Balkan Wars that came before it, which I know little about - this book barely touches on anything to do with Croatia but mentions in passing atrocities that happened there - but I appreciate the remit of the book is solely based on the last Balkan War.
• 
  Rachael

  Great read about an area that is often overlooked/overshadowed. Really learned so much about a topic where my knowledge was shamefully lacking
• 
  Jane

  An engaging and lucid summary of the Balkan wars which of course followed very quickly after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and continued for a decade. Brilliant writing about a terrible time, and, accordingly, an important book for all.
• 
  Lothario

  A brilliant first hand account of the complexities around the Balkans questions and presents perspectives both sides.
• 
  italiandiabolik

  Journalist’s account of the war(s) in the former Yugoslavia in the 90s.
  The interesting parts are mostly connected to his own contacts with local people and their feelings about the whole situation, but honestly it doesn’t add much to my knowledge - I was a teenager back then and I was reading the news on a daily basis about this too near, crazy, war on European soil.
  I feel he blames too much the Serbs, while depicting the Croatians as victims, whereas both had the intentions to wipe out Bosnian Muslims and get their land (confirmed by several army officers of both countries in the following years).
  Moreover, also the Kosovaars are depicted in a shady way, whereas they are even nowadays trying to destroy all the historical (centuries old) Serbian buildings and churches, so to cancel their presence in the area - much what the Turks did with the Armenians, i.e. Islamic forces destroying Christian populations.
• 
  Daniel Ostrowski

  OK as a journalist’s memoir, dreadful everywhere else
  
  This book is a memoir of the author’s experience as a journalist in the Kosovo war, but it also tries to be a lot more and fails pretty badly.
  
  The cover, showing all Yugoslavia, suggests that the book will examine a lot more than just Kosovo- in practice it’s focused on the author’s experience in Kosovo, though he was also present in the Bosnian war. Even still, it’s focus is narrow; Marshall was based in Serbia proper for most of this time and so the book covers only this perspective, focusing more on NATO bombings of Serbia and discussing remarkably little about events in Kosovo. In fact individual Kosovo Albanians are only mentioned four times total in the entire book; if you’re looking to learn anything about Kosovo beyond the very basics you won’t find it here.
  
  That narrow focus can be excused from a memoir, since the author can’t help what he was and wasn’t present to see. But it becomes a problem since the author is in fact willing to discuss other things, moving from memoir into history. Given that, the book’s total lack of any coverage of Kosovo itself becomes baffling. When Marshall chooses to discuss things other than his own experiences, it’s usually machinations in Washington or Whitehall, without much insight beyond a pretty firm conviction that British foreign policy is good and America’s bad. All the attention he pays to this creates a rather inflated impression of the importance of these countries in the events beyond the NATO bombing.
  
  When getting into that diplomatic territory, Marshall begins to quote a lot of unnamed inside sources, which may be unavoidable- but in fact he barely provides any sources at all, with a feeble bibliography. Another of his digressions from his own experience is his coverage of the ‘Bulldozer Revolution’, and though one can’t fault him for discussing the event despite his absence, he seems to draw everything all from one source.
  
  The bulk of the book was written in the early 2000s, and so a short introduction and conclusion seek to bring it up to the present; unfortunately the latter is mostly focused on Russia.
  
  As simply a memoir of the author’s experiences in the conflict this book is maybe alright. When it tries to do anything else it does so pretty poorly.
  
• 
  Kilianten

  This book isn't for everyone and I do understand the negative criticisms. I would recommend skimming over of the history (even a Wikipedia summary would suffice) that leads up to he events of this book to familiarise yourself briefly with the history. If not the content can be a bit jarring without that context.
  
  That is exactly what I did before reading this book and it paid off. I too was hesitant about this being too much of his personal experiences as a reporter during the war and less of a factual retelling of the events. In the end, I found it a nice blend of the two. He briefly explains the situation before, what it was like on the ground during and how the situation is now in current times.
  
  I found this mix of personal experience and a historic retelling of the events to be quite a refreshing unique perspective. I do understand criticisms that there isn't enough of an explanation of the history that led up to the events of the book and a better summary in the beginning would have been appreciated. If you know what youre getting into when you pick up the book, you will enjoy Tim's stellar writing and dark humour. I have read 'Prisoners of Geography' which is great and wasn't too interested in his other works but this book was a pleasant surprise and I will probably read the rest of his stuff becuase of it.
• 
  Laura

  I think it was about the summer of 2007 or 2008 when I was travelling by bus blissfully unaware past Trafalgar Square in London. Hundreds of people were converging onto the heart of London, with flags of what I later found out were of Kosovo. I got off and asked someone what the party was about, and a lady said 'this is not a party. It s a celebration of freedom of Kosovo!' This book gave me some background on the recent historic events of this region of the world, so near and yet so far from my origins. Tim Marshall describes in a typical journalistic style his covering of the Nato war against Serbia and Milosevic for SkyNews, dividing his work in the events preceding the Nato strikes, events during the strikes and events post conflict. He contextualises the events, describing the players, but also is attuned to the plight of the local population on either side of the madness. Although it is a good book, I found it somewhat disjointed at times, possibly as a result of him writing this too quickly or at intervals. I would also have liked more in depth analysis. However, a good book to start from to understand the Kosovan history.
• 
  Samuel Harris

  An amazingly interesting topic somehow told in a boring way. It keeps on feeling like it might get engaging but never quite manages to.
  It's certainly content I'm glad I know about for reading it was just a really painful way of digesting it. Tim has certainly done some cool things and has the odd funny moment. It just needs some more artistic style to the writing to carry the reader along with it.
• 
  Jamie Horan

  Picked this up in the hope of better understanding the split of Yugoslavia. 300 pages later I am still none the wiser. Perhaps this is my fault for not picking the correct book but even early on, when i realised that this wasn’t going to be an informative tome, I knew this was a 1/5. The writer lurches around regaling is about various ‘dangerous’ situations he finds himself in. I’m sure they all happened but they appear chaotic and are very badly explained for context. Would not recommend
• 
  James Harrod

  If only the Kosovo War of 1998-99 was still Europe’s last war, a continent with an exceptionally violent and bloody history. Fortunately for him, Marshall does not assert that conflict in Europe is now over. That would only be embarrassing now. Rather, he admits how his experience working as a Sky News correspondent during the Kosovo War between Kosovo and later NATO and the remnants of Yugoslavia (by this point, little more than modern-day Serbia) shattered his naïve belief that war was something that we Europeans don’t really do anymore or at least not on our own patch. Furthermore, Marshall stresses that the Serbo-Kosovar conflict is a frozen conflict and has yet to be fully resolved. The NATO intervention against Yugoslavia succeeded in preventing the Slobodan ‘Slobo’ Miloševic regime from the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Muslims from Kosovo which Serbia considers its own. But it could not prevent the Kosovars from the ethnic cleansing of Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo, the cradle of Serbian civilisation. Mutual grievances still simmer today. The NATO defeat of Yugoslavia was the nation’s fourth under Slobo and was crucial in causing the Serbian people to rise up against his regime and install a very imperfect democracy in its place. However, democratic Serbia still does not recognise Kosovar independence, barring both nations from EU membership. The land swap between the two countries that would end the conflict, Marshall shows, is far more complicated than it seems. Furthermore, the Serbo-Kosovar conflict is just one frozen conflict in a much bigger Balkans picture. As the ethnic maps included at the start of the book show, there are still sizeable Serbian minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro. A resurgence of Serbian nationalism with their Slavic brother Russia at their back could easily re-ignite the Balkans conflicts that have lain dormant for decades.
  
  ‘Shadowplay’ is an eyewitness account of the lead-up to and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and not a history of the region. When the history is explained, it is usually in the format of a Serbian border guard telling Marshall that he knows nothing before giving him a history lesson from a Serbian perspective, including every single slight, betrayal, and injustice that the Serbian people have suffered at the hands of pretty much everyone. However, Marshall is fantastic at telling his readers what they absolutely need to know in order to follow the story. ‘Shadowplay’ is thus particularly important reading as an introduction to the Balkans for young European readers, those born in the 2000s to be more specific. As Marshall explains, our lifetimes have seen the very best diplomats redeployed from the Balkans to the Middle East and now look set to become more concentrated on the Asia-Pacific region in the decades to come. However, because the Balkans and especially the Serbo-Kosovar conflict is a frozen conflict and not a resolved one, we neglect it at our peril. The United States brokered the Dayton Accords to end the Bosnian War of 1992-95 and the intervention in Kosovo had American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as its driving force. American hard power has undeniably been crucial in making peace in the Balkans in the 1990s when America was at the zenith of her power following the end of the Cold War. America successfully froze the region’s conflicts but may be unwilling or unable to re-freeze them in the future for time simple reason that American foreign policy has tilted elsewhere. The White House may be unwilling to commit diplomats, let alone troops, to the Balkans. The time may come when it is down to us Europeans to referee the Balkans conflicts. Its young Europeans would therefore do well to learn about the Balkans and Marshall’s account is a fantastic place to start.