Donald Horowitz presents a case study of an attempted military coup in Sri Lanka. On the basis of interviews with twenty-three participants in this attempted coup--a mine of information rarely available for a study like this--he provides first-hand evidence of the way officers' motives interact with social and political conditions to foster coup attempts. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.