Haiti: Hope for a Fragile State.

Haiti: Hope for a Fragile State, edited by Yasmine Shamsie and Andrew S. Thompson, The Centre for International Governance Innovation, published by Wilfrid Laurier Press, Waterloo, 2006, ISBN: 0-88920-510-8, 148 pp., paper, $29.95.

Haiti: Hope for a Fragile State sheds light on the complex roots of the current crisis in Haiti. It brings together diverse perspectives on development, the military, history, NGOs, and politics; discusses the peacebuilding efforts of the past; and suggests ways to make Haiti a strong state.

This book is the outcome of a conference that took place in Waterloo, Canada, in November 2005. The impetus for the conference was the Haitian insurgency of February 2004 that forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to free the country, precipitating the establishment of a transitional government and prompting members of the international community to intervene militarily for the second time in ten years. The primary purpose of the conference was to discuss how Haiti, with the assistance of the international community, might shed its current distinction as one of the world's failing states.

The authors of the seven essays in this book aim to shed light on the varied and complex roots of the current crisis, dispel misperceptions, and offer possible recommendations for moving forward. Perhaps more importantly, however, the contributors to this volume suggest that the situation in Haiti, despite evidence to the contrary, is not completely desperate.

The book is divided into three sections: The Outcome and Historical Context, Justice and-Security, and Building Haiti through Civil Society. The authors come from a variety of backgrounds, including academic, non-profit, and the military. As Terry Copp and John English say in the preface, "The authors know Haiti well, whether as residents, academic analysts, non-governmental activists, and, not least, soldiers who tried to establish the stability that has proven so elusive."

Yasmine Shamsie, one of the book's editors, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University and a Fellow at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean

(CERLAC) at York University. Her co-editor, Andrew S. Thompson, holds a PhD in history from the University of Waterloo and, in 2004, was a member of an Amnesty International human rights lobbying and fact-finding mission to Haiti.