MacAlister Brown and Joseph J. Zasloff unravel the tangled web of civil war from 1979 to the coup d'etat by Hun Sen in 1997, and the effort to hold a second election in summer 1998. They trace the years of diplomacy and warfare sustained by outside powers, the establishment of a constitutional government, and the achievements and shortfalls of the U.N. presence in Cambodia. In an epilogue the authors appraise the results of the election held in mid-1998. Their book provides the most complete and up-to-date account of international peacekeeping and political rescue in long-suffering Cambodia.