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Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment edited by Alan Charles Kors, 4 volumes (Oxford University Press) 1920 pp. Bibliographic references, illustrations, index. Reviewing a four-volume work of vast scope within the compass of a few pages is a daunting task, and finishing it was difficult, as this reviewer kept getting side-tracked into reading yet another interesting entry. The reader will, hopefully and mercifully, realize that a review can only give pars pro toto, a general scope with some examples. More

Good People in an Evil Time: Participants and Witnesses by Svetlana Broz, edited by Laurie Kain Hart, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac (Other Press) In the 1990s Svetlana Broz, cardiologist, granddaughter of former Yugoslav head of state Marshal Tito, volunteered her services as a physician in war-torn Bosnia . She discovered that her patients were not only in need of medical care: they urgently had a story to tell – a story suppressed by nationalist politicians and the mainstream media. Faced with a world in which unspeakable crimes not only went unpunished but were rewarded with glory, profit, and power, the Bosnians of all faiths who testify in Good People in an Evil Time were starkly confront­ed with the limits and possibilities of their own ethical choices. More

According to Broz, the six years spent collecting the material for this book were a treasure trove of experience culled from hundreds of encounters and con­versations, each of which was interesting and special, as are human desti­nies. Each of the more than 200 recorded testimonies has a story of its own. Here, in their own words, they describe how people helped one another across ethnic lines and refused the myths promoted by the engineers of genocide. These stories tell of unspeakable crimes, shock and resistance, the capriciousness of war, fear, and the illusion of solidarity within communities and of antagonism between them.

For example, here, in a small excerpt, Broz describes Baljvine, 20 miles outside Mrkonjic Grad: “At the entrance to the village the pavement stopped and there were only muddy ruts where there used to be a street. We saw a dozen people who were hard at work at the first houses, rebuilding their homes from ruins. They explained to us that they were Serbs repairing the homes of their Muslim neighbors and that we'd find the first Muslim whose house was ready to live in, another 300 feet down the road. In the heart of the village we found a mosque, its minaret intact!”

What follows is a visit to a home and a story which is included in the book, and then`she continues, “We drove off to the Serbian part of town that was mostly repaired by then. A newly painted Orthodox church gleamed at the highest point of the village.

I was intrigued by the professor's smile.... When we were back in the car he told me, ‘Your question about whether the Muslim boys ever married Serbian girls took me back to the days when I used to go along to chaperone the seniors on their class trip. I watched for quite awhile how a Muslim boy from Baljvine was stoically resisting the unconcealed affections of a charming Serbian girl from the upper part of the village. I took advantage of a moment when the two of us were alone, to ask him, ‘Tell me, one man to another, how do you resist the temptation?’ He answered without hesitation, ‘Out of the question. She is like a sister to me.’’ ‘Whose schooling is that?’ I wanted to know. ‘Father's.’ With that one word he had said it all.”

The book was edited by Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Haverford and translated by Ellen Elms-Bursac, teacher of Croatian and Ser­bian languages in the Harvard Slavic Department.

For every front line soldier there are dozens, if not hundreds, of ordinary people whose lives are affected by conflict. To most, the mere act of survival is all-consuming. Some commit remarkable acts of heroism and a few place themselves in great danger by reaching out across conflict lines to people in need. The people in this book are ordinary. Their stories are anything but ordinary. In view of this, their testimonies are all the more necessary. That in itself makes this an important book. – Her Majesty Queen Noor, member of the International Commission for Missing Persons

In the introduction, Broz tries to explain to readers why they should read this book: “The short answer is that we need, more than ever, to know the limits and possibilities of human ethics during the terror and tyranny of war and to understand the truth about the causes of war. We can begin by listening to the people who lived through the war tell us what happened to them.” The testimonies in Good People in an Evil Time reverberate far beyond the fron­tiers of the former Yugoslavia. This com­pelling book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the reality on the ground of the "ethnic" conflicts of the late 20th and the 21st century. Inspiring, it gives us hope about the decency of ordinary people.

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