This book brings together articles written by Zoran Obrenović reflecting on the key moments immediately before the outbreak and in the first period of the Yugoslav wars. When it comes to the issue of the “new order,” the author reckons that ideological optimism, caused by the fall of the Berlin Wall and breakup of socialist countries in Eastern Europe, has obscured the negative aspects of the West’s victory in the Cold War: superficial liberalism, dissident moralism, and above all populist demagogy. The dissolution of Yugoslavia showed not only the weakness of a state, but paucity of theoretical thought – as the book criticizes studies that did not contribute to the understanding of the conflict, given that they neglected to consider ethnic conflicts and nationalism as social reality.