Compared with Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, the recent western intervention in Sierra Leone has been largely forgotten. When the State Fails rectifies this, providing a comprehensive and critical analysis of the intervention.

The civil war in Sierra Leone began in 1991 and was declared officially over in 2002 after UK, UN and regional African military intervention. Some claimed it as a case of successful humanitarian intervention. The authors in this collection provide an informed analysis of the impact of the intervention on democracy, development and society in Sierra Leone. The authors take a particularly critical view of the imposition of neoliberalism after the conflict.

As NATO intervention in Libya shows the continued use of external force in internal conflicts, When the State Fails is a timely book for all students and scholars interested in Africa and the question of ‘humanitarian intervention’.

Based on interviews with members of grassroots organisations, media and government institutions, Green Politics in China provides an in-depth and engaging account of the novel ways in which Chinese society is responding to its environmental crisis, using examples rarely captured in Western media or academia.

Joy Y. Zhang and Michael Barr explain how environmental problems are transforming Chinese society through new developments such as the struggle for clean air, low-carbon conspiracy theories, new forms of public fund raising and the international tactics of grassroots NGOs. In doing so, they challenge static understandings of state-society relations in China.

Green Politics in China is an illuminating and detailed investigation which provides crucial insights into how China is both changing internally and emerging as a powerful player in global environmental politics.