Includes index.

Preface: The arc of intervention -- Prologue Peacekeeper, peacemaker -- Indepenence: African beginnings -- Promises to keep: Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and the trials of peacekeeping in a world of civil war -- Sovereignty and human rights: Kosovo, East Timor, Darfur, and the responsibilty to protect -- A peoples/ United Nations: reforming global goverance and restoring the rule of law -- The fate of the continent: Africa's wars, Africa's peace -- Redefining human security: the global fight against poverty and the millennium development goals --The world's fault line: peacemaking in the Middle East -- The wars of 9/11: terror, Afganistan, Iraq, and the United Nations at the brink -- Epilogue: Dreams of a realist.