MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewStern quotes extensively from the large body of literature on the former Yugoslavia, and also explores such related topics as the legal definition of genocide, the international law on secession, the complexities of globalization and the “new man” that Communism hoped to create. These citations and digressions, often in lengthy footnotes, can lend the book the feel of a graduate school thesis, and some errors and false impressions creep in ... In an effort to be evenhanded and to consider all sides in the conflict (and perhaps because of her own expertise), Stern devotes more space than may be warranted to the question of the influence of fundamentalist jihadis on the (traditionally quite secular) Bosnian Muslim population ... [Stern] draws explicit, if somewhat superficial, connections to President Trump’s ability to play upon the concerns and prejudices of many Americans ... Yet most of the insights Stern gleans from the information she collects are more banal than illuminating ... Nor do we gain many new insights from Stern’s reports of her exchanges with Karadzic, which provide little sense of the intelligent, charismatic, yet amoral personality who was able to instigate mass atrocities ... she fails to convey the danger convincingly. Instead, Karadzic comes across as an unrepentant elderly man eager to defend his legacy to a curious interlocutor ... What is more, Stern’s interjections can seem oddly self-involved ... What we need to know is how to combat these tendencies before they become deadly — whether through education, strong institutions, early warning systems or other means. The genesis of terrorism may differ from that of nationalist demagogues. Still, with her understanding of terrorists and her experience in countering them, Stern might have provided us with some tools to inoculate populations against the kinds of fears and hatreds that can lead to genocide. But if My War Criminal accurately describes the problem, it brings us no closer to a solution.
