Six books about how conflicts end—or don’t

WARS, AS THE saying goes, are easy to start but hard to end. Donald Trump is keen to be a peacemaker, but has seen how hard it is to bring enemies to the table. On May 15th America tried to convene Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkey to discuss a ceasefire. (Yet the delegations arrived in different cities; Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, pointedly refused to attend; and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, called the Russian presence “decorative”.) Progress in Gaza is proving just as elusive—Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s busiest envoy, has said that Israel is “not prepared to end the war”. These books examine the travails of past peace talks. Many highlight the fateful consequences of reaching a bad deal.