More than any other part of the globe Africa has become associated with conflict insecurity and human rights atrocities. In the popular imagination and the media overpopulation environmental degradation and ethnic hatred dominate accounts of African violence epitomized in Robert Kaplan's nightmare vision of 'the coming anarchy' (Kaplan 1993). This <I>Review of African Political Economy</I> Reader provides a critical contribution to contemporary debates about conflict and security on the continent.