The Institute Press has just published a unique book that brings together the latest thinking on conflict resolution and international security.

The text--published in late August--was edited by Institute board chairman Chester A. Crocker, professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University, and former senior fellow Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, with the assistance of Pamela Aall, deputy director of the Education and Training Program, which organizes the Institute's faculty seminars.

"There's no other book like this out there," says Crocker. "This volume is designed to be--and will prove to be--a unique aid to teachers in the field of international conflict management and resolution, collective security, diplomacy and mediation, humanitarian intervention, and peacekeeping operations." The broad scope of the book, which covers the origins of conflict and the full range of responses to it, will also appeal to practitioners and policymakers, Crocker notes. "We have brought together the work of experts from rival and overlapping schools in mediation theory, national/international security studies, peace studies, conflict resolution theory, conflict analysis, and theory of third party dispute settlement," he says.

The Institute has long-standing relationships with a good number of the more than 40 contributors, many of whom have been Institute fellows or grantees. They include a broad selection of government officials, policymakers, academic theorists, and representatives of nongovernmental humanitarian aid agencies, among them Pauline Baker, Nicole Ball, Alexander George, James Goodby, Herbert Kelman, Henry Kissinger, Ted Koppel, Harold Saunders, and I. William Zartman. The chapters highlight academic analyses of the issues, insights gleaned from the practical experiences of policymakers and practitioners, and a range of case studies presenting in-depth analyses of mediation and peacemaking efforts.

". . . an important contribution toward understanding and identifying approaches to the prevention, management, and solution of presentday conflicts."
--Sadako Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Aall notes that the Institute has long realized the need for such a text, in part because of the testimony of the many faculty of universities, colleges, and community colleges who attend the Institute's summer seminars on conflict and peacemaking. This year's seminars included "Approaches to Peace in a Changing World," attended by 30 community college faculty from around the country in June; "Conflict and Peacemaking in an Evolving World," attended by 27 university and college faculty in July; and "International Peace, Security, and Conflict Management," for 30 secondary school teachers in August.

". . . an impressive and important contribution to this crucial debate."
--Malcolm Rifkind, British foreign secretary

". . . informative, provocative, stimulating, thoughtful."
--George Shultz, former U.S. secretary of state

Hampson--who is also the author of the recently published Institute Press study Nurturing Peace: Why Peace Settlements Succeed or Fail--says he has observed in his teaching that "students are feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems in the world and feel they can't do anything about them." He and Aall emphasize that Managing Global Chaos shows there is something international organizations, governments--and they as individuals--can do.

Crocker seconds that point: "We're trying to give the readers hope, to let them know there are plenty of options available to policymakers besides doing nothing or sending in the troops."

To order Managing Global Chaos , call 1-800-868-8064 or fax 1-703-661-1501 ($29.95 in paper, ISBN 1-878379-58-5; or $55.00 clothbound, ISBN 1-878379-59-3). For more information and a complete table of contents, see our Managing Global Chaos web page.

© 1996 United States Institute of Peace