First edition published 2002.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-431) and index.

List of maps
Foreword to the revised edition
Preface: Another American way of war
Part 1: Commercial power. "To conquer upon the sea" : Barbary Wars, 1801-1805, 1815 ; "Butcher and bolt" : from the Marquesas, 1813, to China, 1859 ; Empire emerging : from Korea, 1871, to Samoa, 1899
Part 2: Great power. Red summer : Boxer uprising, 1900 ; "Attraction" and "chastisement" : the Philippine War, 1899-1902 ; Caribbean constabulary : Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, 1898-1914 ; Lords of Hispaniola : Haiti, 1915-1934, Dominican Republic, 1916-1924 ; The dusty trail : the Pancho Villa punitive expedition, 1916-1917 ; Blood on the snow : Russia, 1918-1920 ; Chasing Sandino : Nicaragua, 1926-1933 ; "By bluff alone" : China, 1901-1941
Part 3: Superpower. Lessons learned : the small wars manual ; Lessons unlearned : Vietnam, 1959-1975 ; In the shadow of Vietnam : the Powell doctrine and small wars in the 1990s ; In the shadow of 9/11 : the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ; In defense of the Pax Americana : small wars in the Twenty-First Century
Afterword to the revised edition

"While the major conflicts in American history have become all too familiar, America's "small wars" have played an essential but little-appreciated role in the country's growth as a world power. First published in 2002, The Savage Wars of Peace quickly became a key volume in the case for a new policy of interventionism. Max Boot shows how America's smaller actions--such as the recent conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Afghanistan--have made up the vast majority of our military engagements, and yet our armed forces do little to prepare for these "low intensity conflicts." A compellingly readable history of the forgotten wars that helped promote America's rise in the last two centuries, The Savage Wars of Peace is now updated with new material on the repercussions of America's far-flung imperial actions and the impact of these ventures in American international affairs"--Amazon.com, viewed April 3, 2014.