State failure, ethnopolitical war, genocide, famine, and refugee flows are variants of a type of complex political and humanitarian crisis, exemplified during the 1990s in places like Somalia, Bosnia, Liberia, and Afghanistan. The international consequences of such crises are profound, often threatening regional security and requiring major inputs of humanitarian assistance. They also may pose long-term and costly challenges of rebuilding shattered governments and societies. A vital policy...

Departing from the "Great Revolutions" tradition, Jack A. Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, and Farrokh Moshiri have drawn together a variety of area experts to examine contemporary revolutionary crises in light of recent social and political developments. The result is a wide-ranging compendium of cases placed in current theoretical perspective. The boo