Moral Victories: How Activists Provoke Multilateral Action. By Susan Burgerman. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. 186p. $29.95

A lot of scholarly attention has been devoted to demonstrating that transnational activists “matter” in explaining international outcomes. Having paid those dues, it can be argued that scholars of transnational activity can safely shift from a documentary focus to a more profound inquiry concerning how, why, and to what extent nonstate actors matter. On the other hand, to understand the work of transnational activists for the international implementation of moral and legal standards—not a completely new area of inquiry, but a burgeoning one—still requires a considerable amount of empirical documentation of exactly what that work entails. Only time-intensive, border-hopping research provides the names, dates, and actors' words, deeds, and intentions that comprise whatever political activity there is to be theorized about. Thus, both empirical documentation and theorizing about transnational and multilateral processes are demanding, and interdependent, scholarly necessities. In her book Moral Victories: How Activists Provoke Multilateral Action, Susan Burgerman presents finely articulated empirical research that is a welcome contribution to the literature on human rights in multilateral political processes.