"Product of a conference held at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the Johns Hopkins University, in April 2004"--Acknowledgments.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Nation-building and the failure of institutional memory / Francis Fukuyama -- From consensus to crisis : the postwar career of nation-building in U.S. foreign relations / David Ekbladh -- Nation-building in the heyday of the classic development ideology : Ford Foundation experience in the 1950s and 1960s / Francis X. Sutton -- Building nations : the American experience / Minxin Pei, Samia Amin, and Seth Garz -- Nation-building : lessons learned and unlearned / Michèle A. Flournoy -- Sovereignty and legitimacy in Afghan nation-building / S. Frederick Starr -- Rebuilding Afghanistan : impediments, lessons, and prospects / Marvin G. Weinbaum -- The lessons of nation-building in Afghanistan / Larry P. Goodson -- What went wrong and right in Iraq / Larry Diamond -- Striking out in Baghdad : how postconflict reconstruction went awry / Johanna Mendelson Forman -- Learning the lessons of Iraq / James Dobbins -- Guidelines for future nation-builders / Francis Fukuyama.