This book is written by Canadian experts on genocide: both former practitioners and academics specialising in media and the humanities. The book deplores the quasi-absence of the international community in Darfur. Despite the scale of the human catastrophe in Darfur (it is thought that at least 300,000 people have died, thousands of women and girls have been raped, and 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes in Darfur), the international community seems incapable and/or unwilling to act in order to protect the people living in Darfur.

Four main problems are highlighted which prevent the international community from acting: the absence of political will, the inefficiency of bureaucracies, the misrepresentation of crises in the media, and the lack of mobilisation by society in general. The book discusses ways of protecting civilians when crimes against humanity and genocide are being conducted. The contributors are in favour of military intervention, either through UN peacekeeping mandates or through ad hoc military bodies which can intervene as soon as a conflict starts.

The book is divided into three main sections. The first focuses on the lessons which can be learned from the Rwandan genocide. Gerald Caplan denounces the inaction due to the lack of political will on the part of the Permanent Five of the UN's Security Council. Brent Beardsley explains that humanitarianism should be more important than national interest for states, and that military intervention is necessary when diplomacy fails. Amanda Grzyb accurately shows that Western media privileges discussions on Western attitudes and policies over detailed analyses of the politics of a conflict. She argues that Western media should concentrate on understanding the origin of the Darfur crisis, rather than on the reaction or absence of reaction of the West to Darfur.

The second section attempts to give an analysis of the crisis in Darfur. The policies of the government of Sudan are investigated, but with no reference to the demands of the rebel movements in Darfur. Eric Markusen explains why Darfur is not considered a case of genocide. Frank Chalk and Danielle Kelton show the aggressive rhetoric of the government of Sudan within Sudan against the international community. Eric Reeves gives a detailed analysis of the crimes committed by the government of Sudan in Darfur.

The third section concentrates on the reaction of the international community to the crisis in Darfur. Carla Rose Shapiro and Daniel Listoe both show the limits of traditional news, and emphasise the necessity to develop other means of communication for people to get involved in lobbying their governments to act in crises such as Darfur. Samuel Totten and Peter Langille are both very critical of the reaction of the West, the UN and the African Union, and argue strongly in favour of efficient military intervention by the United Nations.

The book could have discussed the following two crucial points. Grzyb explains that one of the main problems of the international community is the lack of understanding of the different ethnic groups in Darfur, but there is unfortunately no attempt here to present these different groups and their political demands. As in other books on Darfur, the role of mediators from China and states in the Islamic world is understudied and needs to be thoroughly analysed. An important point in this book is made by General Roméo Dallaire in the preface: world leaders will not intervene in a region where crimes against humanity are being committed unless they begin to consider the lives of the people there as valuable as those of their own nationals. This book is an important contribution to the study of Darfur, as it underlines the absence of reaction of the international community when crimes against humanity are committed, and the limits of the impact of engaged citizens on state leaders.