THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'When one of the world's leading scholars of civil war tells us that a country is on the brink of violent conflict; we should pay attention. This is an important book' Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt; authors of How Democracies Die Civil wars are the biggest danger to world peace today - this book shows us why they happen; and how to avoid them. We are now living in the world's greatest era of civil wars. While violence has declined worldwide; major civil wars are now being fought in countries including Iraq; Syria and Libya; and smaller civil wars are being fought in India and Malaysia. Even countries we thought could never experience another civil war - such as the USA; Sweden and Ireland - are showing signs of unrest. So how can we stop them? In How Civil Wars Start; acclaimed expert Professor Barbara F. Walter; who has advised on political violence everywhere from the CIA to the U.S. Senate to the United Nations; explains the rise of civil wars and the conditions that create them - not least when countries are not quite democratic. As democracies across the world backslide and citizens become more polarised; civil wars will become even more widespread and last longer than they have in the past - but this urgent and important book shows us a path back toward peace.