part I. Introduction.--1. Doing Empirical Peace Research/ Kristine Hoglund and Magnus Oberg.--2. The Origins of Conemporary Peace Research/ Peter Wallensteen.--Part II. Evaluating Information.--3. Peace Research and Source Criticism: Using historical methodolgy to improve information gathering and analysis/ Tomislav Dulic.--4. Gathering Conflict Information using News Resources/ Magnus Oberg and Margareta Sollenberg.--5. News Reports versus Written Narratives: Collecting information using different types of empirical sources/Frida Moller.--Part III The Practice of Information Gathering.--6. Systematic Data Collection: Experiences from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program/ Ralph Sundberg and Lotta Harbom.--7. Comparative Field Research in War-torn Societies/ Kristine Hoglund.--8. In-depth Interviewing: The process, skill and ethics of interviews in peace research/ Karen Brouneus.--9. Focus Groups: Safety in numbers?.--10. Survey Reseach in Conflict and Post-conflct Societies/ Kristine Eck.-- Part IV. Conclusions.-- 11. Improving Information Gathering and Evaluation/ Kristine Hoglund and Magnus Oberg.