Volume 16, Number 2 · February 11, 1971
The Independent Habit
By A.J.P. Taylor
Tito
by Phyllis Auty
McGraw-Hill, 343 pp., $8.50
The Battle Stalin Lost: Memoirs of Yugoslavia 1948-1953
by Vladimir Dedijer
Viking, 341 pp., $8.50
Contemporary Yugoslavia: Twenty Years of Socialist Experiment
edited by Wayne S. Vucinich
University of California, 442 pp., $9.50
Sir Lewis Namier told a story of a priest in Galicia who was trying to explain miracles to a peasant. The priest said: 'If I jumped from the top of that church tower and landed unhurt, what would you call it?' The peasant answered: 'An accident.' 'If I did it again?' 'Another accident.' 'And if I did it a third time?' 'A habit.' In the twentieth century defiant independence became a habit with the Yugoslavs, and it was a miracle as well. In 1914 Serbia defied Austria-Hungary and persisted throughout the First World War despite many disasters. In 1941 Yugoslavia defied Hitler and went down seemingly in utter disaster.
Review, 2409 words
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