Bought and Sold: Living and Losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments Yugoslavia is hard to understand. To the extent that I have been able to make some sense of it, that success is built on the extraordinary work done by other scholars. The list could go on and on, but I do want to offer special thanks to those Yugoslav specialists from whom I have learned so much over the years, through so many lively conversations about Yugoslavia and about this project, including John Lampe, Wendy Bracewell, Sabrina Ramet, Paul Shoup, Gale Stokes, Carole Rogel, Brigitte Le Normand, Vladimir Kulić, Hannes Grandits, Nicole Lindstrom, Igor Duda, Maja Mikula, Karin Taylor, Elissa Helms, Paula Pickering, Emily Greble, Zoran Milutinović, Arnold Suppan, Katherine Sredl, Peter Vodopivec, Dejan Djokić, Božo Repe, Nick Miller, Ellen Comisso, and the late Dennison Rusinow. I am also grateful for the insights, inspiration, and support I have gained from conversations with what has turned out to be a truly remarkable collection of colleagues—and friends—in the broader circles of East European and Balkan history. Here, too, I cannot hope to acknowledge everyone who deserves it, but I do want to mention the help I have received from Holly Case, Mary Neuburger, John Connelly, Padraic Kenney, Norman Naimark, Martha Lampland, Jonathan Zatlin, Paulina Bren, Brad Abrams, Andrea Orzoff, György (Gyuri) Péteri, Bruce Berglund, Paul Hanebrink, Karl Hall, Kimberly Elman Zarecor, Eagle Glassheim, Irina Gigova, and Pieter Judson. Mark Pittaway, who died all too soon just before I finished this book, was a source of constant inspiration and enthusiasm for all of us who seek to understand the history of everyday life in socialist society. Like so many others, I will always miss his generosity, vitality, insight, and friendship. I owe a tremendous debt to the advisers and friends at the University of Michigan who helped me launch this project. John V. A. Fine Jr., a wonderful mentor in every sense of the word, was always there to offer me his superb guidance, his inexhaustible warmth, camaraderie, and Menschlichkeit, his masterful command of Balkan historiography, and his profound feeling for the intricacies of the Yugoslav experience, along with remarkable latitude and freedom to frame the project and the argument as I judged best. Raymond Grew, as ever, encouraged me in the toughest, friendliest, liveliest, and most helpful way, pushing me to try to write a history that would be big and ambitious and durable, challenging me to conceptualize Yugoslavia’s consumer culture on my own terms, and at the same time making sure that I was x 冷 Acknowledgments alert to the temptations of interpretative overreach. I have always prospered by relying on Brian Porter-Szu ˝cs for his sharp critical eye and his attention to the interpretative problems that matter most in our field; his sense for the historiographical questions and controversies that have made for good work on Eastern Europe and the Balkans is unmatched. Zvi Gitelman, with his inimitable sparkle, gave me a great model to try to live up to in my own work and proved especially artful at nudging me to make my arguments more economical, more clear, and more tightly connected to the larger arcs of East European history and politics. Others at Michigan were incredibly valuable, too. Stephanie Platz and Fran Blouin were always there with a real concern for both my present and my future. Rashi Jackman, Meghan Hays, and Donna Parmalee were great companions who continually enriched my understanding of the Yugoslavs and the Balkans. And Janet Crayne was not just an indispensable guide to Balkan sources but a great friend as well. All of these people, and many others, helped me no end. I have been fortunate to have colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, who have been unfailingly supportive, but I should single out Frank Biess, David Luft, Bob Edelman, and Tom Gallant for their guidance , their wisdom, their encouragement, their keen critical sense, and their very useful suggestions for improving my work. In ways too numerous to mention, Ann Craig, Steve Cassedy, and Mollie Martinek kept me moving along and saw to it that I would be able to make a lasting and happy home here. Cathy Gere, Ev Meade, Armin Owzar, Matthew Herbst, Heidi Keller-Lapp, and Nancy Kwak have done double duty as intellectual comrades and good friends. Susan Sullivan Nakigane has proved a delight as a student, sounding board, and interlocutor. The tenacious and talented research assistance I have received from Nataša Garić-Humphrey has been invaluable. My...