An urgent, provoca­tive exam­i­na­tion of how vio­lence can crip­ple demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­eties and insti­tu­tions and what nations can do to suc­cess­ful­ly estab­lish peace with­in their own borders.
From Geor­gia to Colom­bia to Ghana and Italy – crime exists in every demo­c­ra­t­ic nation on earth, but in some places, it runs ram­pant, shap­ing all aspects of civic life. A Sav­age Order inves­ti­gates why and how some places, rid­dled by inept gov­ern­ment and states, are able to recov­er. Draw­ing on fif­teen years of both aca­d­e­m­ic and first­hand field research – inter­view­ing gen­er­als, for­mer guer­ril­las, activists, politi­cians, mob­sters, and law enforce­ment in coun­tries around the world – Dr. Rachel Kle­in­feld doc­u­ments the unam­bigu­ous mea­sures that soci­eties have tak­en to empow­er the strong civic move­ments, gov­ern­ments, and insti­tu­tions that pro­tect coun­tries and mit­i­gate atroc­i­ties that dam­age peo­ple’s lives. In this pow­er­ful­ly argued and time­ly book, Kle­in­feld takes on exist­ing lit­er­a­ture and pop­u­lar­ly accept­ed the­o­ries about for­eign aid and inter­ven­tion, mak­ing clear exact­ly why it’s cru­cial that we under­stand what makes some coun­tries peace­ful and oth­ers war zones, and what we can do about it.