Collapsed States

At what point can it be said that a state has collapsed? This volume, after the editor Zartman's inieial essay on the nature and causes of state collapse, proivides individual essays by other specialists that examine the nature of state collapse in different countries. Mist of these, given the nature of the phenomenon uner examination, are in Africa. There are remarkaple similarities in the almost mechanical processes that take place when a state is about to fall into anarchy. This is an excvellent volume to understand Somalia, Algeria, Congo Chad and others. It also attempts to examine the signs of imminent collapse. This volume is indispensable , i find, despite its mid 90's publication in understanding what happened in Afghanistan if only by conjecture. The coming Anarchy, and The Ends of the Earth by Robert Kaplan are also excellent complementary volumes even if they are not written in the academic tomne of the Zaertman volume.