How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

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Civil wars are the biggest danger to world peace today - this book by an expert professor shows us why they happen, and how to avoid them We are now living in the world's greatest era of civil wars. While violence has declined worldwide, major civil wars are now being fought in countries including Iraq, Syria and Libya, and smaller civil wars are being fought in India and Malaysia. Even countries we thought could never experience another civil war - such as the USA, Sweden and Ireland - are showing signs of unrest. So how can we stop them In How Civil Wars Start, acclaimed expert Professor Barbara F. Walter, who has advised on political violence everywhere from the CIA to the U.S. Senate to the United Nations, explains the rise of civil wars and the conditions that create them - not least when countries are not quite democratic.. As democracies across the world backslide and citizens become more polarised, civil wars will become even more widespread and last longer than they have in the past - but this urgent and important book shows us a path back toward peace.

Reviews

When one of the world's leading scholars of civil war tells us that a country is on the brink of violent conflict, we should pay attention . . . This is an important book -- Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die
An absorbing guide ... this book performs a valuable service * Sunday Times *
How Civil Wars Start is a stop sign for us. What an imperative book for our time. Read and act -- Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist
A bracing manual . . . . Indispensable -- Financial Times
Like those who spoke up clearly about the dangers of global warming decades ago, Walter delivers a grave message that we ignore at our peril -- David Remnick * The New Yorker *
Polemical and essential -- James A. Robinson, co-author of Why Nations Fail
A vivid, compelling book on a globally vital issue. Timely, important and original -- Professor Richard English, author of Does Terrorism Work A History
Barbara F. Walter has drawn on decades of experience and unparalleled expertise to write a powerful and indispensable book. How Civil Wars Start brilliantly illuminates the history of civil wars and the profound dangers to our union today, serving as both a warning about the stakes in our politics and a call to action for those who want to preserve multiethnic democracy and the values that America is supposed to stand for -- Ben Rhodes, author of After the Fall

Author Bio

Barbara F. Walter is the Rohr Professor of International Relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Walter runs the award-winning blog Political Violence at a Glance and has written for the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Reuters and Foreign Affairs.