Cities at War: Global Insecurity and Urban Resistance. Edited by Kaldor, Mary and Sassen, Saskia . New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. 264 p. $90.00 cloth, $30.00 paper

[...]Florian Weigand’s chapter on Kabul and Farza, Afghanistan, and Karen Büscher’s chapter on Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, illustrate the differential experiences of conflict and the various ways in which residents work with or resist the escalation of violence within their communities. Through detailed accounts of urban poverty, Kaker identifies how spatial exclusion requires poor communities to develop methods for ensuring their own security, which she argues remains both a “self-perpetuating and a self-defeating” method of citizen protection (p. 156). Additionally, this book is a must read for policy makers, particularly in the United States: several chapters point out the missteps and ancillary consequences of US military operations throughout the globe, while including insightful suggestions for government decision makers.