The literature on the challenges faced by post-conflict states is abundant. It is thus welcome that this edited book does not try to provide broad discussions but rather tackles precise and essential aspects of post-war situations. This constitutes the common thread of the book as it is quite successful in picking diverse but key issues related to post-conflict contexts. The book's second unifying principle is that it has a geographical bias towards Sierra Leone, Rwanda and to a lesser extent Liberia and Mozambique.

The book first offers in-depth, analytical case studies of some of the main challenges in a post-war context, with Chapters 2 to 7 dealing respectively with the tension between justice, peace and reconciliation, the role of ex-combatants, the competing memories in a post-violence era, land reform, elections and the ambivalent roles of NGOs. Whilst these issues are far from unknown in the literature, these chapters offer excellent analytical discussions well supported by each case study. For instance, Jessica Schafer in Chapter 3 convincingly challenges academic views and policy programmes on ex-combatants by exploring their political awareness and their complex relations with civilians in Mozambique. In Chapter 6, John Yoder offers an interesting discussion of the nature of elections in post conflict situations through the cases of Sierra Leone, Liberia and DRC. He argues that elections should be conceptualised as ‘a stress test’ imposed on institutions, society and leadership useful to identify the different blockages to democratisation a country might face. Particularly interesting as well is the contribution of Fredline M'Cormack-Hale in Chapter 7. By drawing on the Sierra Leonean case, she shows how NGOs' visions of development and ignorance of the local context can undermine state building by encouraging the population to bypass, or impose excessive demands on the state.

Second, the book includes chapters whose contributions are rather empirical. Chapters 8 to 12 provide detailed information on Sierra Leonean and Liberian governance challenges and the role of the diaspora and the African Union in reconstruction. With the exception of Chapter 8 by Arthur Abraham, which offers an analytical history of the chieftaincy institution in Sierra Leone and discusses its role in the post-war context, it is disappointing that these chapters are often overly descriptive. It is also regrettable that the introductory and conclusive chapters are redundant in their efforts to summarise each contribution and link them together. It might have been more useful to place the contributions in the current theoretical debates about reconstruction and democratisation.

These weaknesses notwithstanding, the book offers several extremely interesting discussions on post-war situations in Africa. It will interest predominantly scholars and students looking for well-grounded analysis on specific post-conflict challenges. The book will also appeal to those looking for empirical information on the countries explored in the book, especially Sierra Leone and Rwanda.