Through this textbook [the authors] aim to begin to formulate their own prescriptions for building a lasting peace. In so doing [they] also aim to help them better apprecate the ethical dilemmas intrinsic to making choices about war and peace and to recognize how normative issues affect world politics ... [The book aims to teach] students to thinks critically about foreign policy by asking two ... questions: Why do states go to war? And how can they create a lasting peace? ... However, this is not a simply a text about war and its termination; it is also about broader issues in international relations. It introduces international relations ideas and concepts that students need to better understand the cases - concepts such as levels of analysis, liberalism and realism, rational choice, enduring rivalries, irredentism, grand strategy, just war theory, and more.-Pref.

PART I. HOW STATES MAKE DECISION FOR WAR AND PEACE : 1. War and the making of peace, an introduction -- PART II. WAR AND PEACE IN THE CLASSICAL EUROPEAN STATE SYSTEM : 2. Thirty years' war and the peace of Westphalia, violence as a way of life ; 3. Napoleonic wars and the Congress of Vienna, building peace with a concert of power ; 4. Wars of German unification, the diplomacy of iron and blood -- PART III. QUEST FOR PEACE IN A CENTURY OF GLOBAL WAR : 5. World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, a war to end all wars? ; 6. World War II and its aftermath, the long, cold peace -- PART IV. FACE OF WAR AND PEACE ON THE EVE OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY : 7.Persian Golf War, a hollow victory ; 8. Humanitarian intervention into Kosovo, a quixotic crusade? -- PART V. PATHS TO PEACE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY : MORAL DILEMMAS AND POLICY PRESCRIPTIONS : 9. Waging peace, choices and consequences -- Glossary.