Patriotism for Sale - crowdfunding investigative journalism

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
This complex work of investigative journalism tells the true story of Slovenia’s independence in 1991, which was the first episode in Yugoslavia’s terrible wars of the 1990s. It has been in the making for the past ten years and places the reader in the eye of the storm, amid ground-breaking events that shook the whole of Europe. It is based on tens of thousands of documents and graphic testimonies by over a hundred key witnesses.

WHAT ELSE?
Patriotism for Sale exposes a vast mafia network, the secret dealings of arms lobbyists and hushed-up multi-million euros deals made away from prying public eyes. It tells unpleasant truths about the young aspiring Slovenia that have been suppressed. It exposes outrageous facts about the rising star of the Balkans that you could not find out for yourself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
MATEJ ŠURC is one of Slovenia's top reporters and one of the leading investigative journalists in Central Europe and the Balkans. He has covered top world news stories for nearly 30 years. These include the first free elections in Hungary and Poland, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the coup overthrowing Communism in Romania. He then reported on the breakup of Yugoslavia and the battlefields of Croatia. From 1993 to 1997, as a correspondent for Radio-Television Slovenia (RTVS) in Belgrade, he covered the following war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the political upheaval in Kosovo. From 1999 to 2005, he was RTVS correspondent in Washington DC, where he reported on 9/11 and American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. He is co-author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning book trilogy, V imenu države (In the Name of the State) which is one of the biggest undertakings in the history of investigative reporting in Slovenia. In 2016, the Slovene Association of Journalists awarded him the Watchdog Prize for his best-selling book Prevarana Slovenija (now published in English as Patriotism for Sale), calling it an outstanding achievement in journalism.

CONTRIBUTORS:
EVA JOLY: one of Europe's most successful fraud prosecutors and now a leading figure in the French Green party and an MEP, best known for her mammoth eight-year investigation into the affairs of oil multinational Elf in the 1990s. In more recent years, Joly has turned her attentions to Iceland, where she advised the government's special prosecutor, Ólafur Hauksson, on criminal investigations triggered by the country's spectacular financial meltdown in late 2008. This investigation into alleged fraud and corruption has been described as the largest white-collar crime inquiry attempted anywhere in the world.

MARCUS FERRAR: he served as a Reuters Correspondent in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, and later in Portugal during the 1970s Revolution. He was the sole Western correspondent in East Berlin, and covered Prague after the Soviet invasion. Now an author living in Oxford, he specializes in writing about WWII, Communism, Germany, Eastern Europe and people fighting for freedom.

ANDREW FEINSTEIN: was elected an African National Congress (ANC) Member of Parliament in South Africa in 1994. Feinstein was at the time referred to as "one of the country’s most vocal and talented MPs", who argued that a thorough investigation into a massive South African arms deal had to be carried out. He resigned in 2001 when the ANC refused to do so. He chairs the Aids Charity Friends of the Treatment Action Campaign, and is a director of the anti-corruption organisation Corruption Watch.

Dr. SPOMENKA HRIBAR: the contributor of the peer review of Patriotism for Sale is one of Slovenia´s leading public and intellectual figures, frequently called »the First Lady of Slovenian Democratic Opposition« and »the Voice of Slovenian Spring«. A renowned author, philosopher, sociologist, politician and columnist, she is one of the leading intellectual figures of Slovenia's War of Independence.

VASILIJ VOLARIČ: born in Slovenia, has been a translator/interpreter for the United States Department of State since 1993. Among many assignments, he interpreted for Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and several other high level American politicians. He translated numerous important documents into Slovenian and English and has compared several Slovene-American agreements and treaties for accuracy and possible discrepancies between their English and Slovenian versions.


PATRIOTISM FOR SALE
How Independent Slovenia Fell Foul for Crooked Arms dealing
More about the book / trade paperback edition:
http://www.sanje.si/knjigarna/patriotism-for-sale2.html

Hardcover edition:
http://www.sanje.si/knjigarna/patriotism-for-sale.html