Book Description
"Very well researched, critical yet balanced, this is the best book about Zog to have appeared in any language."
—Bejtullah Destani, Director of the Centre for Albanian Studies Shortly before 5 p.m. on Saturday, September 1, 1928, Europe gained a new kingdom and its only Muslim king: 32-year-old Zog I of the Albanians. Few foreign journalists were present in the Parliament House in Tirana to hear him swear his oath on the Koran and the Bible, yet the birth of the Kingdom of Albania—a native monarchy, not an alien imposition—did not go unnoticed abroad. King Zog (1895–1961) was a curiosity, and so he has remained: the most atypical European monarch of the twentieth century, a man entirely without royal connections who created his own kingdom. By contemporaries, he was variously labeled "the last ruler of romance," "an appalling gangster," "the modern Napoleon," "the finest patriot," and "frankly a cad." Even today his reputation is disputed, but Zog is undeniably one of the foremost figures in Albanian history. Though notorious for cut-throat political intrigue, he promised to bring order and progress to a land that had long known little of either. "It was I who made Albania," he claimed. Zog's reign ended in 1939; Italian Fascists forced him into exile and post-war Stalinists kept him there despite his best efforts to return. In this first full biography, Jason Tomes explores the reality behind the man described in The Times as "the bizarre King Zog" and shows him to have been the product of a unique time and place. Tomes invites readers to set aside their assumptions about modern European monarchy and meet a king who fired back at assassins and paid his bills with gold bullion.

About the Author
Jason Tomes has lectured in modern history and politics for the Universities of Oxford, Warsaw, and Boston. He is the author of Balfour and Foreign Policy and over fifty articles for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He lives in England.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Shortly before 5 p.m. on Saturday, September 1, 1928, Europe gained a new kingdom and its only Muslim king: 32 year old Zog I of the Albanians. Few foreign journalists were present in the Parliament House in Tirana to hear him swear his oath on the Koran and the Bible, yet the birth of the Kingdom of Albania -- a native monarchy, not an alien imposition -- did not go unnoticed abroad. The strangeness of his name saw to that. King Zog was a curiosity, and so he has remained: the most unusual European monarch of the twentieth century, a man entirely without royal connections who created his own kingdom. By contemporaries, he was variously labelled "the last ruler of romance," "an appalling gangster," "the modern Napoleon," "the finest patriot," and "frankly a cad." Even today his reputation is disputed, but Zog was undeniably one of the foremost figures in Albanian history. Though notorious for cutthroat political intrigue, he promised to bring order and progress to a land that had long known little of either. "It was I who made Albania," he claimed.