How Civil Wars Start
And How to Stop Them
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- £0.99
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Publisher Description
Civil wars are the biggest danger to world peace today - this book shows us why they happen, and how to avoid them.
'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' Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die
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 Iraq, Syria and Libya as well as smaller civil wars in India and Malaysia. Even countries we thought could never experience another - such as the USA, Sweden and Ireland - are showing signs of unrest. So how can we stop them?
In How Civil Wars Start, Professor Barbara F. Walter, an expert who has advised the CIA, Senate and UN, explains the rise of civil wars, the conditions that create them and a path back toward peace.
*Sunday Times Smart Thinking Book of the Year 2022 & New York Times Bestseller*
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Political scientist Walter (Committing to Peace) issues a stark and deeply informed warning that the U.S. may be headed for another civil war. Drawing on her extensive studies of foreign conflicts, Walter highlights factors that make countries susceptible to sectarian violence, including a government that is neither democratic nor totalitarian, loss of status by a historically dominant ethnic group, and the closing of political avenues for change. Explaining how social media foments political instability, Walter notes that Facebook and other companies showed little inclination to police calls to violence and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, while providing a platform for anti-democratic political organizing even in countries with deep democratic traditions, such as Sweden. Drawing incisive parallels to societies in which ethnic grievances have been harnessed to mobilize armed forces for civil war, Walter notes the increasing visibility of right-wing militias in the U.S. Such groups—financed and abetted by white nationalists in other countries and America's geopolitical rivals—could eventually engage in armed struggle against the government. To avoid civil war, Walter writes, America needs to improve its democratic institutions by making elections freer and more open and increasing civics education. Distinguished by its lucid analysis and global perspective, this wake-up call rings clear.
