"Croatia is today popularly known as a beautiful country, with an excellent soccer team, but the rest of its long history is still not well known outside scholarly circles. It is less known for example that Croatia started as an ancient kingdom established in the 7th century. It lost its independence in the 11th century and had a troubled history until the first democratic elections in 1990 and independence in 1991. Since the Great Schism in the 11th century, Croatia has been the easternmost country of the Catholic West facing the Orthodox East. Attacked by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century, it has been called ever since Antemurale Christianitatis (The Bulwark of Christianity). Croatia went through difficult times during the two World Wars and in the inter-war and the post-war periods until it won its independence and later gained membership to the European Union in 2013. This book reveals important information about its history, the struggles it endured to gain independence, the key problems of post-communist social and economic transition, and prospects for the future, summarized at the end as an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses, as well as its external threats and opportunities. The book is divided into two parts, "Croatian History Timeline" and "Past in Present and Future", because the Croatian past informs its present and future in a profound way. There are few sources in English that present so many until-now unknown aspects of this European country as does this book. It may be said that it is the first reliable and objective guide to give essential understanding of the Republic of Croatia published so far in the English language"--