Williams explores the effectiveness of various types of responses and strategies available to states when faced with demands for territorial revisions. She examines the situations surrounding the 19th-century unification of Germany, the breakup of Yugoslavia and the strife in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the ongoing struggle over the fate of Kashmir.

The type of demand for territorial revisions, she argues, and the responses determine whether the outcome will be peace or war. While states should deter those states or groups that are imperialist, she points to the utility of pursuing a firm-but-flexible strategy toward those that are consolidationists. This analysis will be of considerable value to scholars, students, and policy makers involved with issues of contemporary nationalism, ethnic politics, and international relations.