George Bernard Shaw wrote that on the last day of Creation, "God desired to crown His work," and so fashioned the Croatian coastline "out of tears, stars, and breath." Anyone who has glimpsed that long, mountainous, island-studded coast would surely agree that its beauty is little short of divine. Croatia, quite simply, is blessed with some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet and in recent years has become a favorite tourist destination. A Traveller's History of Croatia offers tourists and travellers an inside look at the complex roots of Croatian history and the many influences they will see on its towns, ports and islands. The country has been a melting-pot of Mediterranean, Central European and Italian cultures. After a look at how its geography and geology have shaped the nation, a fascinating story unfolds explaining its past: why there are so many Greek and Roman archaeological remains, the coming of Christianity, the sad tale of how the early blooming of the Croatian state in the 9th century was thwarted by its subsequent partition and absorption into the Venetian, Habsburg and Ottoman Empires and the tortuous struggle for sovereignty in the nineteenth century. The twentieth century brought new solutions in the founding of Yugoslavia, problems with Croatian nationalism and the horrors of invasion in World War II. Under Tito a new stability came to the region until the battles of the 1990s, which were finally resolved with the international recognition of an independent state in 1992. One definite conclusion can be drawn about Croatia in the early twenty-first century: this is the best time in all of Croatian history. The country is after all independent, democratic, with a stable economy, and it has established itself as one of the world's most coveted tourist destinations.
