He explores how small nations survive between the "scylla and charybdis" of world powers, often having to resort to radical means to maintain their identity. Controversies

Published originally in 1989 (just before the breakup of Yugoslavia), Bespuća povijesne zbiljnosti is Tuđman’s response to what he saw as Serbian-dominated Yugoslav historiography. The book aggressively revises the number of victims at the Jasenovac concentration camp (down to 30,000–40,000, far below mainstream estimates of 80,000–100,000+), minimizes Croatian Ustaša collaboration, and shifts blame for WWII atrocities onto Chetniks, communists, and Jews (“Jews as privileged victims”). It also introduces his theory of Croatia’s “millennial statehood” and argues that the Yugoslav idea was a Serbian hegemonic project.