Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.

Ad Nauseum

The New Republic Online
Race and free speech at the Daily Californian.
March 7, 2001
The Daily Californian is doing it again, bless its soul.

The newspaper at the University of California at Berkeley has always had a Madonna-like ability to reinvent itself, remaining relevant and controversial long after ... (Read more)

Radio Wars

Brill’s Content
Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic understood the power of propaganda and did his best to control the media. But his failure to silence the U.S.-supported radio station B-92 was emblematic of the war he lost to control the country.
March 2001
In Belgrade, you don’t ... (Read more)

The Curse of Normalcy

The Atlantic
Writers in post-Milosevic Yugoslavia discover that angst no longer sells.
February 2001
The main exhibition hall in Belgrade is a visual curiosity. A concrete-and-glass dome designed during the Tito era by an architect of great imagination, the hall looks like a flying ... (Read more)

Riot in October

Details
Inside a roiling soccer stadium in Belgrade, old hostilities ignite an afternoon of bloody jubilation, steel-toed kicks, and broken teeth.
January 2001
2:30 P.M.

The scent of revenge is in the air, and it smells a lot like beer.

Fans of the Red Star soccer team are pouring into a Belgrade stadium, ... (Read more)

Death and Taxis

The Washington Post
This House Has Fallen: Midnight in Nigeria. By Karl Maier
December 24, 2000
By Karl Maier
Public Affairs. 327 pp. $26

Reviewed by Peter Maass

A book that begins with a taxi story usually begins colorfully. Karl Maier opens This House Has Fallen with a wild brawl that broke out when ... (Read more)

The Accidental Warlord

Talk
Hussein Aideed was counting potholes in Southern California when he was drafted to replace his father as leader of one of Somalia’s most feared militias. As Aideed is learning, life as a tribal chieftain isn’t what it used to be.
December 2000
It is nearly lunchtime, and the phone rings.

A ... (Read more)

Serbia Is Not Freed of Its Ugly Illusions

The New York Times
October 24, 2000
BELGRADE, Serbia–Several days ago a Serbian law student told me, in excellent English, that he wanted to become a judge so that he could help clean up the corrupt legal system that is one of the poisonous legacies of Slobodan Milosevic. When our ... (Read more)

Mittel Hizzoner

The New York Times Magazine
The former opposition leader and new mayor of Belgrade, Milan Protic, explains one of his postrevolution mandates: clean up the streets already.
October 22, 2000
Peter Maass: There was a revolution here in Belgrade on Oct. 5. Protesters stormed the federal ... (Read more)

The Supercool Top-Secret DVD-Decoder Song

The New Yorker
Talk of the Town
October 16, 2000
Since 1998, the Internet site MP3.com has served as an on-line bazaar, where any garage band in the universe can offer up its music and wait for the accolades to pour in. More than half a million songs are posted on the site, but Joseph ... (Read more)

Mogadishu Dispatch

The New Republic
Tennis helps bring Somalia’s dead capital back to life.
October 2, 2000
The tennis courts at Casa d’Italia, a country club in Mogadishu, have nourished several generations of players. First, there were the Italians who built the club and who controlled ... (Read more)