Written for undergraduate students studying the politics of conflict and cooperation

Understanding War and Peace considers the roots of global conflicts and the various means used to resolve them. Edited by Dan Reiter with contributing authors who are all leading scholars in the field, it balances approachable, engaging writing with a conceptually rigorous overview of the most important ideas in conflict studies.

Focusing on concepts, policy, and historical applications, the text minimizes literature reviews and technical jargon to engagingly present all major topics in international conflict, including nuclear weapons, peacekeeping, terrorism, gender, alliances, environment and conflict, civil wars, and public opinion.

Enriching the textbook pedagogy, each chapter concludes with a summary of a published quantitative study to introduce students with no prior quantitative training to quantitative analysis.

Online resources for instructors include an instructor manual, a test bank, and contemporary case studies for each chapter topic regarding the conflict in Ukraine.