The emergence and disintegration of states, often under conditions of appalling violence, is a problem of primary importance in the world. Chad's long experience of civil strife and foreign intervention illustrates some of the fundamental difficulties involved in the attempt to achieve political stability through armed intervention. Covering Chad's thirty years of civil strife, Limits of Anarchy looks at foreign inervention in Chad's civil war and the effects of such intervention on state construction. The first major study of Chad to appear in English for many years, the book pays particular attention to French, Chadian, and ofhter African political reflections on the problem of Chad.