Peace Soldiers: The Sociology of a United Nations Military Force

This short but finely honed book presents an exquisite analysis of UNFICYP, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Cyprus. The author, an eminent sociologist whose speciality is the military profession, challenges conventional wisdom, arguing that participation in a peacekeeping force does not automatically foster international values. The soldiers on Cyprus withheld final allegiance to the U.N. as their evaluation of peacekeeping "evolved from naive optimism through cynical disillusionment to an eventual realistically favorable appreciation."