Responding to the changes that have swept across North Africa since the first edition, this sheds new light on the enduring dispute over Western Sahara. It reviews the history of the dispute, and explains how and why attempts made by the OAU and, more persistently, the UN failed to achieve a formula for resolution acceptable to both Morocco and Western Sahara's Polisario Front. Bringing the story up to the present, it describes the new interest in a political compromise.