Since emerging as a settlement in the seventh century, Dubrovnik has faced Venetian aggressors, Ottoman plotters, a terrible earthquake in 1667 and, finally, the will of Napoleon. In 1991-92 the city survived the besieging Yugoslav army, which heavily damaged but did not destroy its cultural heritage. This book is a comprehensive history of Dubrovnik's progress over twelve centuries of European development, encompassing arts, architecture, social and economic changes, politics and the trauma of war.