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.