Since the Dayton Peace Agreement at the end of 1995, Bosnia-Hercegovina has been the focus of a major international intervention to transform a deeply-divided post-war territory into a politically viable, multi-ethnic and democratic state. This study places that state-making enterprise within the context of Bosnia's complex historical legacy - the background to the "Bosnian question" that emerged as Yugoslavia unravelled in 1991-2, and the social and political realities at ground level in post-war Bosnia. At the same time, Sumantra Bose seeks to bring a comparative perspective to the issues that make contemporary Bosnia significant far beyond its contested borders - debates over partition, the efficacy of international peace-building interventions, and the suitability of particular political-institutional frameworks to longer-term goals of coexistence and democratization.