Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past. By Kimberly Zisk Marten. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 208p. $27.95.

This instructive volume aims to sort out the reasons that peacekeeping missions today so frequently fail. Kimberly Zisk Marten throws a wide net in investigating why. While her main case studies are Haiti, the Balkans, East Timor, and Afghanistan, she also makes more passing reference to a number of other recent or current interventions, including Iraq. As the subtitle of her book indicates, she also considers a variety of efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by liberal (for the times) colonial powers to ensure order and to restructure local societies and governments in line with what was perceived as beneficial both for the subject populations and the imperial homeland.