Shadowplay: A Memoir From Behind the Lines and Under Fire

Product Information

Tim Marshall is reported to be a supporter of Leeds United - on Politics Live on 22 February 2022, a Leeds United logo was visible. In his book Shadowplay: The Inside Story of Europe's Last War, Marshall says that he was supporting Bayern Munich in the 1999 UEFA Champions League final against Manchester United because he was a Leeds United supporter. Finally, having spent 10 years in the region, and having used so few of the local words, it’s amazing how many spelling mistakes Tim manage to make in this book (Batjanica, Gotev je, persistently writing dj instead of đ and many more). He has written for many of the national newspapers including the Times, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, and the Sunday Times. Shadowplay - Behind The Lines & Under Fire (The Inside Story Of Europe's Last War). A book which documents the downfall of Slobodan Milošević and contains Marshall's account of his experiences during the Yugoslav Wars. (Release: June 2019)

The race for dominance in space is shaping the future of humanity. Join bestselling author and international diplomacy expert, Tim Marshall, as he lifts the lid on the geopolitical space race.After three years as IRN’s Paris correspondent and extensive work for BBC radio and TV, Tim joined Sky News. Reporting from Europe, the USA and Asia, Tim became Middle East Correspondent based in Jerusalem. Timothy John Marshall is a British journalist, author, and broadcaster, specialising in foreign affairs and international diplomacy. Marshall is a guest commentator on world events for the BBC, Sky News and a guest presenter on LBC, and was formerly the diplomatic and foreign affairs editor for Sky News.

Appropriate medium & duration: (5/5)
As mentioned above, I thought the book was very engaging, so I think it’s just the right medium and duration to tell this story. This does create a sense of emotional distancing, as this book focuses on the politics rather than the people affected on the ground, and it therefore runs in a different vein of war correspondence and journalism to the likes of Marie Colvin. However, when read interspersed with Colvin's collected writings on Kosovo, I found my view of the conflict enhanced dramatically.

Nicholas Lezard (13 August 2015). "Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics by Tim Marshall - review". Evening Standard. The cover, showing all Yugoslavia, suggests that the book will examine a lot more than just Kosovo- in practice it’s focused on the author’s experience in Kosovo, though he was also present in the Bosnian war. Even still, it’s focus is narrow; Marshall was based in Serbia proper for most of this time and so the book covers only this perspective, focusing more on NATO bombings of Serbia and discussing remarkably little about events in Kosovo. In fact individual Kosovo Albanians are only mentioned four times total in the entire book; if you’re looking to learn anything about Kosovo beyond the very basics you won’t find it here. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To Know About Global Politics". Elliott & Thompson. Archived from the original on 25 October 2018 . Retrieved 7 August 2015.

Into 1999 and the war escalates and NATO begin bombing the Serbs to bring an end to the war. There are some horrific stories of collateral damage and mistakes from the NATO side with civilians being killed and maimed. He takes us through the war in three parts. ‘Before’, ‘During’ and ‘After’. The ‘After’ being a detailed account of how Milošević is toppled. ‘Revolution!’.Originally from Leeds, Tim arrived at broadcasting from the road less traveled. Not a media studies or journalism graduate, in fact not a graduate at all, after a wholly unsuccessful career as a painter and decorator he worked his way through newsroom nightshifts, and unpaid stints as a researcher and runner before eventually securing himself a foothold on the first rung of the broadcasting career ladder. Comparison to similar books: (4/5)
This book compares favorably to other historical accounts/quasi-memoirs from journalists. I’ve been disappointed by books written by other journalists due to their dry, then-this-then-that-then-this-then-that style writing. Stylistically, Marshall is a cut above his peers. I’d highly recommend it. Twenty years on from the war's end, with the rise of Russian power, a weakened NATO and stalled EU expansion, this story is more relevant than ever, as questions remain about the possibility of conflict on European soil. Utterly compelling, this is Tim Marshall at his very best: behind the lines, under fire and full of the insight that has made him one of Britain's foremost writers on geopolitics. The shattering of Yugoslavia in the 1990s showed that, after nearly 50 years of peace, war could return to Europe. It came to its bloody conclusion in Kosovo in 1999.