LAUSR

Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations edited by Koops, MacQueen, Tardy and Williams presents the first comprehensive account of peacekeeping missions from 1948 to 2013. Hence, it fills an important gap left by existing reference works, which tend to focus on the UN at large or the Security Council in particular. Part I of the book comprises five chapters on ‘concepts and perspectives’ that provide details on trends in peace operations, developments in international law, the dynamics of inter-organisational relations, conceptions of humanitarian intervention, and the evaluation of peace operations. These chapters cover extensive ground and provide an up-to-date perspective on peacekeeping and international security. They also succeed in dispelling the conceptual confusion that prevails in some corners of the literature on peace missions. Part II is essentially a history of ‘blue helmet’ operations since the inception of the UN. This part comprises 67 chapters that cover all missions authorised and led by the UN in chronological order, starting with the military observer mission United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) that was created in 1948 to observe the truce between Israel and its Arab neighbours and ending with the stabilisation mission United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) that deployed to Mali in 2013. Each chapter provides background on the origins of the respective mission, information on the mandate and key facts, a concise account on the course of the operation, and an evaluation of its successes and failures. The empirical chapters are divided along four historical periods, each of which is preceded by a contextualising introduction from the editors. The book brings together an impressive group of academics and practitioners including leading scholars, senior diplomats and military officers with first-hand experience in UN peace operations. If anything is missing at all from this extensive volume, it might be an updated typology of UN peace operations (which could have served as a distinguishing device for the empirical chapters) and a more explicit discussion of Security Council politics and the conditions under which the Council is willing to endorse peace operations in the first place. These quibbles notwithstanding, the Handbook will be the authoritative reference on UN peace operations and, as such, it will be of tremendous help to students and scholars of international politics.