This collection is timely in light of the myriad of unmanageable, longstanding conflicts that occupy global headlines. It focuses on why conflicts persist and magnify (with destructive consequences) despite efforts at resolution. The answer is in part because the nature of conflict is shifting as a result of new circumstances and changes that unfold at the local, national, and international level. Specifically, contributors identify four new, interacting developments that tend to exacerbate conflict but at the same time can be used to work toward a more constructive solution. The essays are divided into four parts, each dedicated to one of these interacting developments: new actors, new dynamics, new strategies, and new frameworks. Each part includes four or five case studies that present different aspects of the new development. The case studies are rich in detail and examine conflict at various levels. The most significant contribution this volume makes to the literature on conflict resolution is its interdisciplinary approach. As the case studies demonstrate, lessons can be extracted from both successful and failed efforts to resolve conflict. The four developments highlighted may show the way to a more constructive approach to conflict resolution. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Choice Reviews

The editors have done a good job of fitting the chapters into a coherent theme. . . the book communicates a relatively optimistic outlook.

Journal of Peace Research

This volume examines the most critical issue facing humanity—our seemingly complete inability to constructively transform the many intractable conflicts that are devastating countries across the globe.Though many argue that climate change is the world's biggest problem, we won't be able to "solve" climate change (or inequality, or immigration, or anything else) unless we transform the conflicts that drive it. By examining new actors, dynamics, strategies, and frameworks, this volume examines the many old and new sources of current difficulties, as well as promising new approaches for overcoming these challenges.

Heidi and Guy Burgess, Co-Directors, Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado

Intractable conflicts are often considered too hard to resolve. This book, however, disagrees and defines a number of paths that could transform these stubborn conflagrations and set them on the road to resolution. Drawing on a wide variety of cases and highlighting different disciplinary approaches, this volume delves deeply into the topic and is highly recommended for students and experts alike.

Pamela R. Aall, vice president for education, United States Institute of Peace

In this ground-breaking contribution to peace and conflict studies, Galia Golan and Louis Kriesberg bring together cutting-edge scholarship on intractable conflicts and their transformation. Sections focus on new actors, new dynamics, new strategies, and new frameworks. The contributors to this book provide evidence-based scholarship that deepens understandings of conflict transformation and offer more nuanced or even countervailing perspectives on central ideas in the field. A particularly important contribution is the exploration of the linkages between the nature of conflict resolution processes and just outcomes for the parties. This is a must-read for scholars, practitioners, and policy makers, and for leaders in nongovernmental and governmental organizations internationally who are seeking to address complex and longstanding social conflicts and to promote human rights and social justice in a changing global context.

Jessica Senehi, University of Manitoba