Fragile States: Violence and the Failure of Intervention by Lothar Brock, Hans-Henrik Holm, Georg Sørensen and Michael Stohl. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012. 200 pp., £13.99 paperback, 978 0745649429.
Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security by Stewart Patrick. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011. 352 pp., £18.99 paperback, 978 0199751518.
Security, Development and the Fragile State: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Policy by David Carment, Stewart Prest and Yiagadeesen Samy. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011. 304 pp., £85.00 hardback, 978 0415480833
The literature on ‘fragile states’ has been growing, and these three books represent recent contributions to the subject. Taken together, all three texts provide a comprehensive and updated discussion on the discourse on fragile states, and attempt to provide policy recommendations based on their empirical analysis.