History in exile is a significant contribution to our understanding of a little known chapter in the development of balkan identities in relation to western europe ballingers meticulous research and her ability to maintain a balanced distance from all the parties concerned will make this work a major addition to the literature. Pamela ballinger history in exile memory and identity at the borders of the balkans princeton princeton university press 2003 368 pp history in exile memory and identity at the borders of the balkans concerns a little known region the border zone between italy slovenia and croatia known as the julian march. In part i i explore how actors in the julian march have forged narratives of memory and identity within the intersection of regional national and international politics and at three key moments of boundary collapse and construction world war i world war ii and the end of the cold war and the breakup of yugoslavia. Pamela ballinger analyzes the role of living memory in the preservation of community identity making use of an anthropological methodology that resembles that of oral history she has collected transcribed and analyzed the memories of her informants not so much to determine what actually happened in istria after world war ii but rather to explore how memory has functioned . In the decade after world war ii up to 350000 ethnic italians were displaced from the border