This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace
Carnegie Reporter
Fall 2005

"Replacing tyranny with justice, healing deep scars, exchanging hatred for hope…the women in This Was Not Our War teach us how … In their stories, we read the history of humankind. In their vision, we glimpse possibilities for our future."

Swanee Hunt was the U.S. ambassador to Austria during the 1990s, when war was raging in Bosnia just over the border. Unable to just stand by and watch events unfold, she traveled to Sarajevo in the belly of a cargo plane bringing urgently needed supplies to the city, which was then enduring a months-long siege. Later, when hazardous conditions made it impossible for her to return, Hunt changed tactics and began interviewing Bosnian women who were surviving the savagery of war, and who would later dedicate their lives to rebuilding the country in peace. Twenty-six of those women—doctors, engineers, journalists, politicians, businesswomen, wives and mothers—tell their very personal, deeply moving stories in this book.

The women are all ages and socioeconomic levels, and they represent Bosnia's many cultural and ethnic groups. All share the horrifying memory of watching their vibrant multicultural community explode into chaos and violence. And while they speak with candor about past trauma, their focus is on a humane and peaceful future. A seasoned diplomat and psychologist, Hunt is the director of the Women and Public Policy Program of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Her book paints a compelling picture of Bosnia’s political climate from the height of the conflict through the peace process and post-war period. She believes the Bosnian women's testimony offers not only an emotional connection, but "lessons citizens and policy makers alike can ponder." This Was Not Our War, says Robert Coles, is "the kind of history Tolstoy urged be written—a narration of on-the-scene individuals rendered by one herself very much willing to be respectfully among them."