UN motions against genocide, incessant propaganda in favour of "international cooperation", whatever that might be, and other woolly good intentions, have not made wars and racial conflicts any less widespread or less intense. With most utopian solutions long discredited, the practical problems of statesmanship are now more acute than ever, and peacekeeping on a troubled planet is one of the foremost of them. This book is hard-headed and factual, promising no easy solutions but showing that much can be achieved given a constructive, no-nonsense approach. In spite of its loss of credibility in many eyes, the UN in fact has done a lot and has at least prevented a number of potentially bloody situations from getting worse. William Shawcross writes as a professional journalist, pragmatically reporting on individual cases from Afghanistan to East Timor, and he does not preach to us or offer tendentious analyses.