"Pathological narcissism is a well defined (and phenomenological) mental health theoretical construct. No doubt, narcissists engage in anti-Other discourse and other virulent and pernicious narratives. But the existence of such a discourse is not a DETERMINANT of pathological narcissism - merely its manifestation. What GIVES RISE to the grandiosity gap IS socio- economic reality. The gap is between the REAL and the IDEAL, between the ACTUAL and the (self- DELUSIONAL and FANTASIZED. Socio-economic factors breed narcissistic injury and narcissistic rage. Return The Crescent and the Cross Introduction "There are two maxims for historians which so harmonise with what I know of history that I would like to claim them as my own, though they really belong to nineteenth-century historiography: first, that governments try to press upon the historian the key to all the drawers but one, and are anxious to spread the belief that this single one contains no secret of importance; secondly, that if the historian can only find the thing which the government does not want him to know, he will lay his hand upon something that is likely to be significant." Herbert Butterfield, "History and Human Relations", London, 1951, p. 186 The Balkans as a region is a relatively novel way of looking at the discrete nation-states that emerged from the carcasses of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires and fought over their spoils. This sempiternal fight is a determinant of Balkan identity. The nations of the Balkan are defined more by ornery opposition than by cohesive identities. They derive sustenance and political-historical coherence from conflict. It is their afflatus. The more complex the axes of self-definition, the more multifaceted and intractable the conflicts. Rabid nationalism against utopian regionalism, fascism (really, opportunism) versus liberalism, religion-tinted traditionalism (the local moribund edition of conservatism) versus "Western" modernity. Who wins is of crucial importance to world peace. The Balkan is a relatively new political entity. Formerly divided between the decrepit Ottoman Empire and the imploding Austro- Hungarian one - the countries of the Balkans emerged as unique polities only during the 19th century. This was to be expected as a wave of nationalism swept Europe and led to the formation of the modern, bureaucratic state as we know it. Even so, the discrete entities that struggled to the surface of statehood did not feel that they shared a regional destiny or identity. All they did was fight ferociously, ruthlessly and mercilessly over the corrupted remnants of the Sick Men of Europe (the above mentioned two residual empires). In this, they proved themselves to be the proper heirs of their former masters: murderous, suborned, Byzantine and nearsighted.