Tito and His Comrades

This landmark biography reveals the life of one of the most powerful figures of the Cold War era. Josip Broz (1892-1980), nicknamed Tito, led Yugoslavia for nearly four decades with charisma, cunning, and an iron fist.

With his Partisans he fought Hitler during World War II, and after the war he shrewdly resisted the Soviet Union’s grasp. A leader of the non-aligned nations, he long enjoyed a reputation in the West as ＂the only good Communist＂ despite a dubious human rights record at home. Joze Pirjevec employs impressive research from archives in eight languages to offer this illuminating, definitive portrait of a complex man in turbulent times.

Pirjevec recounts how Tito, with little schooling but an astute intellect and driving ambition, rose through Communist Party ranks to shape and rule the Yugoslav federation. Surviving multiple assassination attempts by Nazis, Soviet spies, and others, Tito boldly threatened Stalin in return and may have, Pirjevec reveals, contrived Stalin’s death. The narrative follows Tito’s personal and political life into old age, as the specter of a Soviet invasion haunted him until his death at age eighty-seven. Available in English for the first time, this edition includes new material from Pirjevec and a foreword by Emily Greble.

Joze Pirjevec is a research counselor at the Science and Research Center of Koper, Slovenia, and a fellow of the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences. His many books have been translated into numerous languages and include Serbs, Croatians, and Slovenians: History of Three Nations; The Yugoslav Wars: 1991-1999; and Saint Vitus Day: Yugoslavia 1918-1992, History of a Tragedy.