A Lonely Devil

The eagerly awaited new edition of this highly-popular text continues to be the most lucid and engaging book available on conflict resolution and peace agreements.

Peter Wallensteen, a renowned academic in the field, draws on recent research and examples from around the world, linking the theory of conflict resolution to real-world cases throughout the book.

NEW to the third edition:

• Expanded coverage of the making of peace agreements, including peace and justice, disarmament, and gender-peace connections

• Coverage of the actions of the Obama administration

• Explores the ongoing situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, the Cote D'Ivoire, Iran, Pakistan and the Arab democratic wave from a conflict resolution perspective

• Updated coverage of the continuing 'war on terror'.

• Attention is given to the comparison of different outcomes, whether negotiated between parties or victory of one over the other with references to Sri Lanka, the Middle East, and Liberia.

Understanding Conflict Resolution remains an essential text for all students, lecturers and researchers of peace and conflict resolution in international relations, global politics and political science.

A baldly stated but softly spoken treatment of a fundamental theme in world literature: May a man flee the terrible evil he has done, cleanse his soul of poison, and find the love and affection he has always wanted? The author, an ‚migr‚ from Angola who now lives in England, sets his intense second novel (after Patriots, not reviewed) in the fictional African island country of Henrique, a former Portuguese colony (south of So Tom‚ and west of Angola). The narrator is Fernando Luis, an orphan, journalist, interrogator, torturer, and killer who confirms on the last page what the reader has long suspected: He is writing his story as an act of absolution and has included only those few episodes and details that seem to bear the meaning of his life--the cool, almost chemically reduced residue of a few short, hellishly burning years during which he committed many reprehensible acts in order to ingratiate himself with Henrique's dictatorial regime. 'Nando Luis is a man morally paralyzed, unable or unwilling to move, a feverish witness to everything from happy people doing the samba to unhappy people hacking bodies to pieces. At times, Luis thinks his acts of evil stem from a simple survival instinct (betray a lover to save your skin), or from basic human emotions like envy or the desire for revenge (I want what you have and I can never have; you treat me poorly, I will treat you or someone like you even more poorly). But where did the evil come from, why did it choose Luis, and why does it refuse to leave him? Luis doesn't know, and the author's refusal to provide glib, melodramatic, or superficial answers to these questions gives the text a tone of gripping anguish. A novel of rare wisdom and power. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.