Arguably the most successful part of Mate Nikola Tokić's book is the explanation of the relationship between the émigré generation, those who had left Croatia after the Second World War, and the generation the author somewhat confusingly calls the “semi-émigrés.” These were young people who had left in 1950s and 60s. It was the tension between a microscopic part of the economic and political migrants of the post-war generation and the previous generation of émigrés that had propelled terrorism among some of the Croats. New émigrés were frustrated with the inactivity of the older generation. After two decades of internal power struggle inspired by revolutionary political violence, anti-colonial movements, and a culture of terrorism during the Cold War, a tiny minority of Croatians became one of the most active radical groups in the west. Inspired by the Ustaša terrorism of the Second World War, they targeted Serbs whom they regarded as sub-humans.

For radical Croatians, “Serbo-communists” as they called them (the name was probably modeled after “Judeo-Bolsheviks”) were more of a problem than communism itself (89, 125). Any regime or policy that failed to lead to an independent Croatian state was unacceptable; all tools leading to that goal were on the table. Between 1962 and the 1980s, it was mostly these radical Croatians who were fighting with bombs and guns against Yugoslav interests in the west. Most of the time they were anti-communist and counting on the support of the western governments, many of whom, together with their secret services, were ready to turn a blind eye or fully ignore the problem as long as the fight of Croats against Yugoslavs remained within the “family.” For the Australian secret service, Croatian Antipodeans were fighting against the forces of communism, and they had no intelligence regarding extremist activity at all.

Tokić is solid when showing how the radical diaspora in Sweden had de facto disappeared after two incidents: the assassination of Yugoslav Ambassador Vladimir Rolović and the hijacking of SAS flight 130. Strict terrorist legislation in Sweden followed, causing a sharp decline in Croatian separatist activity in the north of Europe. It “might simply be that the most radical members of the movement had been on SAS 130” flight (145), the author claims—three hijackers altogether. The rest of the Croats in Sweden were much less interested in radical policies, “perhaps even disaffected by the backlash in Sweden to the movement's violent tactics” (165).

Besides an intriguing introduction, probably the best part of this book is the analysis of Croatian semi-émigré activities in Australia. The way Croatian terrorist activities there affected the national elections and pushed the adoption of the first ever anti-terrorist laws is interesting, even for an audience not specializing in Croatian history. Some of the stories were not explored in depth, although they sound absolutely “farcical had they not been tragic” (152). In 1976, Jozo Damjanović killed Carlos Abdala—a former labor minister in the Uruguayan government and his country's ambassador in Asuncion—by mistake. Damjanović was targeting Momčilo Vučeković, the Yugoslav Ambassador to Argentina (and Paraguay). They apparently looked similar. This was only one example of the poor planning of many of the deadliest actions of the Croatian terrorists.

In 1977, nine months after a group of Croatian “freedom-fighters” hijacked a TWA airplane, causing the death of one American policeman, another group of three Croats, all very young, stormed the Yugoslav Mission to the United Nations in New York. The aim was to take hostage Jakša Petrić, the Yugoslav permanent representative to the United Nations, but he was not in the building. Jakša Petrić was a Croat. Did Croatian radicals ever distinguish Yugoslav officials of Croatian origin from the others? It is not clear from the book if they were more or less anti-Serbian, when Yugoslavia was represented by Croats. Tokić does connect personalities from the past with the current situation in Croatia, which is good—for example in the case of Zvonko Bušić and Miro Barešić. However, Tokić's approach is not always consistent. For example, he fails to mention that one of the three Croats who took part in a 1977 raid, Marijan Buconjic, was named Assistant Minister for Immigration in Franjo Tuđman's administration after Croatia gained independence. He was not allowed to travel to the United States any more, although he was in charge of the Croatian diaspora.

The book fails to explain claims of the radical semi-émigrés that Croatia was facing “existential peril,” “oppression and even genocide” in Yugoslavia in 1970. Although these statements were probably taken from the then émigrés’ pamphlets, there is no clear explanation: was that really the case in Yugoslavia? Were Croatians under the Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito decimated by the Serbs? How were hundreds of thousands if not millions of non-radical Croats reacting to the whole fuss made by the small minority of their compatriots? Why were there no Polish or Slovak or Ukrainian or Baltic nationals fighting similarly? A stronger connection with the overall Yugoslav policy and Belgrade relations with different administrations in Germany, Sweden, and the United States would have made this otherwise readable text more persuasive. Probably a more serious shortcoming is the lack of Yugoslav archival material. Many Yugoslav diplomats stated that the influence of the diaspora on the bilateral relations of Yugoslavia with different countries was minimal. The author agrees (173), but at the same time, all Yugoslav diplomats were meticulously reporting such incidents, small and serious. The archives in Belgrade would be the right place to measure the effect of semi- émigrés’ violence and their relevance.

Tokić's book did not provoke debate in Croatia yet. He gave one visible interview to the Serbian weekly in Croatia, “Novosti,” which is interesting. Tokić is far too dissonant in his interpretation from the dominant interpretation of the diaspora in Croatia today. In a country where some of the most notorious terrorists were being given monuments, we can hope that in spite of certain imperfections, this book can move research on this topic in the right direction.