Highlighting a central but neglected component of Africa's complicated and intractable wars, the essays collected here argue that political militarism stands in the way of enduring peace, democracy and the development of civil society. Present in both right-wing and left-wing guises - the latter practised by former liberation fronts, which have all betrayed the ideals that enthused their earlier struggles - these anonymous essays, drawn from the experience of conflict and peacemaking, focus on militarism's different manifestations and the ways of overcoming it.