One of a dozen datasets drawn from the electronic Correlates of War Project, which is employed by economists, sociologists, and political scientists to look at violent conflict, this one for militarized interstate disputes (MID) notes with all manner of coding and numbers over 2,000 global disputes that have occurred over two centuries. Quite opaque for most generalists and others unfamiliar with the project, a major flaw in this subset, identified by Gibler and his associates, has been the lack of detailed narrative summaries for the individual conflicts. As remedy, detailed original narrative descriptions for each, in various lengths and exclusive to this work, have been prepared, organized by rivalry and within geographic regions. This is a unique and helpful “companion” work for those international relations specialists who regularly employ this segment of the project, or for those who just wish historical or consequential details on unremembered quarrels, e.g., that between Peru and Spain in March 1859 (No. 1594) or Belgium and France in January–July 1923 ( No. 177). One can hope that similar reference works will be developed for the other project datasets, especially those in the areas of Diplomatic Exchange, 1817–2005 and Bilateral Trade, 1870–2009.



Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Choice Reviews

International Conflicts, 1816-2010 is a major work of scholarship in the field of International Relations. Invaluable narratives are provided for over 2000 Militarized Interstate Disputes on a global basis. The scholarship is outstanding. For those with interest in the causes, histories and consequences of international conflict, this volume will remain the standard work for many years to come.

Patrick James, University of Southern California

Data sets can be opaque collections of numbers and codes to many people. This work provides some history and details about thousands of events in the most widely used and arguably most important data in international conflict scholarship. A valuable resource for the novice to the expert.

Paul F. Diehl, Ashbel Smith Professor of Political Science, University of Texas

This is an essential reference guide to the militarized interstate conflicts (MIDs) of the world from 1816-2010. Gibler provides narratives for what went on in each dispute—a tremendous task and a major contribution to the IR field. All scholars and students who work with the MID data need this book at their side.

John A. Vasquez, Mackie Scholar in International Relations, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign