Critchley Hall News
A Free City in the Balkens - New Book
"A Free City in the Balkens. Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia." This book tells the story of a controversial exercise in post-war nation building in a northern region of the country, and compares it with the international community's efforts in the country as a whole. It is written by Matthew Parish, the brother in Law of our colleague Debby Parish who is in charge of the Family Matters at Critchley Hall.
From 2005 to 2007, Matthew was the Chief Legal Adviser to an international civil servant in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They wielded extraordinary powers, to better and worse effect. It is a model that has been exported elsewhere around the world. Here he tells this story, and he asks whether state-building of the Bosnian kind really works. The book promises to be engaging, punchy and controversial. It was an extraordinary time in the country's history, and yielded a story that must be told. The book also makes some tentative predictions about the future of one of Europe's most politically precarious nations.
To find out more about this book, please have a look at his website at www.matthewparish.com, and click on "publications". There you will also find several of his works already published in the areas of state-building, Bosnia, law, and development.