Modern Albania

The book really shines when Abrahams presents the results of his scrupulous search for the few, brave souls who dared to raise protests against the communist regime. ~Transitions Online

[Abrahams] account is useful for a number of reasons. For example, it clearly encourages questions about external involvement, especially the Wests decision 1) to tolerate corruption, authoritarian policies and monopolization of power for the sake of regional short-term stability, and 2) to get rid of regimes once they stop serving their own interests. ~Slavonic and East European Review

[A]ssiduously researched, compulsively readable . . . Abrahams speaks the language, has read the documents, witnessed many of the key episodes for himself, and interviewed almost every player of significance. Albania is a country filled with wily, resourceful, worldly, funny, and fatalistic people, and with their many contributions Abrahamss narrative is as darkly farcical as it is tragic. ~Andrew Gumbel, Los Angeles Review of Books

Abrahams has been afforded the opportunity to 'peer behind the curtain of a society that is for many outsiders opaque'. Yet it is his character portraits, which are reminiscent of both Ryszard Kapuscinski and John le Carre, which bring this richly woven work of narrative non-fiction to life. ~Will Nicoll, The Spectator

In this intimate portrait of the country, he explains how the old regime--the last of the Eastern European communist regimes to fall--slowly crumbled and a democratic party, largely student-based, formed, faltered, and gave way to a transfigured communist party. ~Robert Legvold,Foreign Affairs

The canon on modern Albanian political history in English is small but Fred Abraham's book is now a large contribution to it. Excellent and above all readable; anyone interested in contemporary Albanian and Balkan history should be grateful that he has committed his deep knowledge about the country, and above all its travails in the 1990s, to paper. ~Tim Judah,author of Kosovo: War and Revenge