How Civil Wars Start
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  • Published: 8 August 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241988398
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $30.00

How Civil Wars Start

And How to Stop Them

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Paperback
8 Aug 2023
EBook
6 Jan 2022
Audiobook
6 Jan 2022
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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.
  • Published: 8 August 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241988398
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $30.00
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Praise for How Civil Wars Start

A vivid, compelling book on a globally vital issue. Timely, important and original

Professor Richard English, author of Does Terrorism Work? A History

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

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

Polemical and essential

James A. Robinson, co-author of Why Nations Fail

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

An absorbing guide ... this book performs a valuable service

Sunday Times

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