Amazon.com
King Leopold of Belgium, writes historian Adam Hochschild in this grim history, did not much care for his native land or his subjects, all of which he dismissed as "small country, small people." Even so, he searched the globe to find a colony for Belgium, frantic that the scramble of other European powers for overseas dominions in Africa and Asia would leave nothing for himself or his people. When he eventually found a suitable location in what would become the Belgian Congo, later known as Zaire and now simply as Congo, Leopold set about establishing a rule of terror that would culminate in the deaths of 4 to 8 million indigenous people, "a death toll," Hochschild writes, "of Holocaust dimensions." Those who survived went to work mining ore or harvesting rubber, yielding a fortune for the Belgian king, who salted away billions of dollars in hidden bank accounts throughout the world. Hochschild's fine book of historical inquiry, which draws heavily on eyewitness accounts of the colonialists' savagery, brings this little-studied episode in European and African history into new light. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold's Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II. With great power and compassion, King Leopold's Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo--too long forgotten--onto the conscience of the West.
Customer Reviews:
The other side of the White Man's Burden.......2007-10-15
Not since Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness" have we seen the cold-blooded truth about the cold-blooded atrocities that were all too commonplace during the era of "the white man's colonization of Africa." Here "the art of despotism Western style" was perfected and perhaps reached its apotheosis through the evil but almost Teutonically calculated machinations of a petty and vile King of Belgium.
Examined from inside the hermitically sealed inner chamber of horrors of a forgotten and almost unrecorded, and still seldom acknowledged 20th Century holocaust, the author lays bare -- atrocity-by-ugly-atrocity -- the moral and humanitarian horrors of the subjugation of the "Belgian Congo." It is a crime of such monumental proportions that it will forever stain the character of the entire Belgian people.
Yet, despite the fact that these horrors, in almost every respect rivaled the European holocaust committed against Jews and other "so called undesirables," until this volume, the atrocities of the Belgium Congo had remained a carefully ignored and much repressed - if not subtly rationalized and protected part of Western history.
Just as Hitler disguised the last train ride to Auschwitz as a vacation to an idyllic labor camp, so too did Leopold's henchmen -- which, as usual, included a sizable contingent of the Christian clergy - also disguised their perfidy under the cloak of "civilizing the barbaric Africans." If it does nothing else, this book finally reveals who the real savages of Africa were.
Adam Hochschild shakes the moral conscience in more than just one way: The key subtext of his book is that there is no final justice in this world. The strong, the greedy and the powerful continue to murder and otherwise ravage the earth with impunity; and then as King Leopold II did, they rewrite history to cover their crimes. Overtime, even those who know the truth are unable to come to grips with what they know and with what they have seen. In order to retain a modicum of their conscience intact, they learn that it is much healthier to pretend to forget. Otherwise, how else can they sit idly by and watch the dead rest peacefully, when the unremitting Christian-backed moral hell on earth continue to rage unabated above their heads?
The other subtext is equally chilling: This revelation gives a whole new meaning to Rudyard Kipling's poem, or William Easterly's book of the same name: "The White Man's Burden." It is that the white man's greed and crimes over the past half millennium -- in the Americas, against all of Africa and most of Asia - under the guise of doing good for the less civilized -- has bequeath to us all a moral "scorched earth." All of humanity has been compromised and greatly diminished by the white man's rampant quest for his version of civilization and progress.
Now, in the aftermath of the bloodiest century in history, it is not too much of an exaggeration to suggest that the white man's greed and immorality normalized under the guise of doing good for the less civilized has itself become a kind of global moral savagery that is now a burden for all the world.
Five Stars
the heart of man is desperately wicked.......2007-09-25
If you have somehow achieved sufficient literacy to read user reviews on Amazon, and still believe that people are basically good, now's your chance to read a book that will relieve you of this misconception. King Leopold's Ghost gives historical proof that there is no problem in recruiting enough people to torture, humiliate, and kill perfectly innocent Africans by the millions.
All I can say is thank God for the press and for Christian missionaries. If it hadn't been for those two institutions, the horror in Africa perpetrated by the Belgian king would have continued unabated until all of the land drained by the Congo river was stripped of all human inhabitants.
Ashes from the White Sepulcher .......2007-08-16
A masterful work. Hochschild outlines an entire world duped by charms and charming sentiments. Millions perished while Leopold gains wealth untold. Maiming, murder, mayhem and the crooked world of Presidents, Kings and Congresses. Leopold mastery of the world stage lasted decades. Long term lessons on how governments manage what is perceived to be the gospel truth. Hochschild deserves high recognition for this introduction into the world of tycoons and titans plundering a nation in the name of Christianity. Hochschild's assessment of current Zaire affairs are disturbing. Cobalt, uranium and a host of lesser necessities available to the of best armed encampments from the native riches of this African country. The plunder continues
The True Story Behind Heart of Darkness.......2007-07-14
In the annals of atrocities committed by human beings against ourselves, the historic and ongoing mistreatment of Africa by the Industrialized World takes the (highly dubious) prize. While an extremely generous revision of history might forgive the arrogance and naivety of the colonial powers for believing that clothing, Christianity, modern weapons and free markets would be enough to make Africa like Europe, King Leopold II of Belgium seems to stand out ahead of the pack. King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild, in one respect, is a depressing narrative about how MILLIONS of Africans were "civilized" by trading their lives and liberty to grow Leopold's personal fortune. But it is also an inspiring story about how a few people, through their passion for the inalienable rights endowed to all people, shook Europe and America awake and their efforts to bring about real change in the Congo.
Hochschild, as he explains in his preface, first became aware of the crimes against humanity instigated by King Leopold by accident. A quote from Mark Twain (active in the Congo Movement during the decades around the turn of the 20th century) about the 8-10 million people that were helped to their graves by Leopold's regime in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Such a tragically huge tally is striking, and it inspired Hochschild to find out as much as he could. King Leopold's Ghost begins with a whirlwind synopsis of the first 400 years of European imposition upon Central Africa -- the Portuguese, Afoso, Prester John, the Colonial Era. The pace slows once Henry M. Stanley and Leopold enter the picture.
The lives of Stanley and Leopold, the two major do-ers in the tale of the subjugation of the Congo, are discussed in detail. Stanley, the explorer, ended up on Leopold's payroll because he really didn't have much else to do. His explorations down the Congo, though courageous and admired, did not raise the kind of interest he though it should in the Foreign Office of his native Britain. Stanley became available for employment just as Leopold's machinations and Machiavellian dealings were justifying (among his fellow monarchs) his desire to take over control of the Congo. Of course, according to Leopold, this was all just so that he could lift up the poor Africans and encourage free trade. Leopold, who never actually visited his kingdom in Africa, needed a surrogate in-country to clear the bush and establish trading stations. Stanley was his man.
Once trading stations were established in the Congo, Europeans came to trade. At first, the primary object of plunder was ivory, but then, with the advent of bicycles (and later automobiles) with inflatable tires, wild rubber became the main export. And so began the "Rubber Terror," where the people of the Congo were forced upon pain and death to harvest the latex. The result, as described by Hochschild, was unbelievable savagery on the part of the civilized world.
Fortunately for the world, the tale of the subjugation of the congo has some undo-ers as well, foremost among them E.D. Morel. The Congo Reform Movement had a worldwide following that made Leopold miserable. Unfortunately for the cause of justice, Leopold died and the Congo Free State (as it was then known) was merely transferred to Belgium -- Leopold was never punished for his crimes against humanity. In 1960, with the rising tide of anti-colonialism beginning to wax all over Africa, Belgium handed power over to the Congolese to rule themselves and try to pull a reasonable government of the people from the humid air. That has not faired particularly well either.
Adam Hochschild's book is well written and engaging. He made a valiant effort to find the words of actual Africans describing their plight during their struggle -- rather than just the victors, or, at best, some sympathetic compatriots of the victors. The paperback edition comes with an extended afterward where the author describes some of the consequences of bringing this too long forgotten take to the forefront again.
Detailed Readable History.......2007-07-05
Positives:
Detailed, readable history about Belgium's Scramble for Africa in the Congo. Hochschild does an excellent job of introducing key figures who aid King Leopold in getting 'his colony' in Africa as well as those who fought against the Belgian King's enslavement of the Congolese people. In addition, Hochschild intersperses the general experience of the colonizers and the Congolese with personal stories from sadistic colonizers, missionaries, the King's lobbyists, and most critically, some of the 10 million people devastated by King Leopold II's obsession.
Negatives:
Hochschild often distracts from the history he is so effectively telling through tangential introductions of more contemporary history and through personal analysis of historical events being presented. His personal analysis interrupts the pace of the history being told, and causes suspiscion about how the author chose to use the facts he researched.
Book Description
Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton gives American kids a firsthand look at growing up in Kenya as a member of a tribe of nomads whose livelihood centers on the raising and grazing of cattle. Readers share Lekuton's first encounter with a lion, the epitome of bravery in the warrior tradition. They follow his mischievous antics as a young Maasai cattle herder, coming-of-age initiation, boarding school escapades, soccer success, and journey to America for college. Lekuton's riveting text combines exotic details of nomadic life with the universal experience and emotions of a growing boy.
Customer Reviews:
Growing up as a Maasai warrior.......2007-09-20
I really liked this book. It is one of several that I purchased after coming back from Tanzania, and I have recommended it to others. The author is straight-forward about his situation, so I wouldn't recommend it to children under, say, 12, but it is quite moving as an adult book, though he wrote it for young people.
From the African bush to Harvard........2007-09-15
Facing the Lion is the amazing TRUE story of a Maasai boy growing up in Kenya. I first heard about this National Geographic book from my son's 8th grade world history teacher - it was on a summer reading list. B-O-R-I-N-G - right? Well think again. You will not be able to put this book down! The boy grows up tending his family's herd of extremely valuable cows - and that means standing guard at night when lions literally leap from the bush to decimate the livestock. The lessons that the boy learns from incredible adventure, adversity, and challenge in his African upbringing only serve to give him the drive, determination, and power to succeed at HARVARD. My husband read the book on a plane and now uses a number of examples in his consulting practice. A FUN read and a WONDERFUL book for ANYBODY - teens to adult.
Simple, yet informative!.......2007-09-10
Narrated in the voice of a child as he grows up in a Maasai village, this is a quick, easy-to-read book for learning a lot about the Maasai culture (ie; before traveling to Africa, or for general interest). It was recommended by my travel agent and, while very simple, I will agree it is very well worth the read!
Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai.......2007-06-08
This book was absolutely fascinating to adults as well as younger readers.
Joseph Lekuton is elected to Kenya Parliament.......2006-07-27
On July 24, 2006, this remarkable young man was elected to the Kenyan parliament to represent his home district. He says thank you for the help and encouragement he received while living in the United States.
Customer Reviews:
The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior: An Autobiography.......2006-11-07
Very interesting first person account of a Maasai man who becomes western educationed and gives insight to what growing up in a Maasai village was like. Quick read - powerful story. You must read this book if you plan on going to Kenya or Tanzania.
Excellent.......2006-03-23
After having just visited Africa, I wanted to get a better feel for what it's really like to be Maasai. This book is very real, and gives interesting insights from the "inside". I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Bridging two worlds........2002-09-29
There couldn't be two more different places than New York City and the lands of the Maasai in Tanzania. Tepilit Ole Saitoti's story of his journey in and between these two worlds is fascinating. I am looking forward to the update he is writing now that he is a Maasai Elder. This insight into another land and culture is a gift.
The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior: An Autobiography.......2002-02-04
Excellent book, very accurate and really worth the money. It gives the picture of a boy growing up as a real Maasai and the new life in civilized world of Germany and USA - a man between two cultures and the difficult question to decide which way to go along. Makes yourself wondering about the way we Western people are living and gives a chance to see our world with other eyers.
After having visited the Maasai area some months ago a good opportunity to compare facts with my own experience and found it even more interesting. Go for it!
sitting here with the author.......2001-12-22
I read this book 12 years ago and was so moved that I wrote a letter to to the author - something I have never done before or since. I was so struck by his ability to navigate between two cultures that seemingly had little in common. His book is a testimonial to the flexibility of the human spirit and the power of education. Last week, out of the blue, I received a telephone call from the author. Apparently, he had saved my address all these years. Saitoti is currently in the US as a visiting scholar. He will be speaking in various institutions and he has just started writing a follow up to The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior (The Worlds of a Maasai Elder). I have just shown him these amazon reviews. He is sitting here beside me and
would like to take this opportunity to say: "Thank you to the reviewers of my book for such beautiful reviews and to amazon.com for posting such a wonderful display of my work."
Book Description
Presents conclusive evidence that ancient Egypt was originally the remnant of an earlier, highly sophisticated civilization
• Supports earlier speculations based on myth and esoteric sources with scientific proof from the fields of genetics, engineering, and geology
• Provides further proof of the connection between the Mayans and ancient Egyptians
• Links the mystery of Cro-Magnon man to the rise and fall of this ancient civilization
In the late nineteenth century, French explorer Augustus Le Plongeon, after years of research in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, concluded that the Mayan and Egyptian civilizations were related--as remnants of a once greater and highly sophisticated culture. The discoveries of modern researchers over the last two decades now support this once derided speculation with evidence revealing that the Sphinx is thousands of years older than Egyptologists have claimed, that the pyramids were not tombs but geomechanical power plants, and that the megaliths of the Nabta Playa reveal complex astronomical star maps that existed 4,000 years before conventional historians deemed such knowledge possible.
Much of the past support for prehistoric civilization has relied on esoteric traditions and mythic narrative. Using hard scientific evidence from the fields of archaeology, genetics, engineering, and geology, as well as sacred and religious texts, Malkowski shows that these mythic narratives are based on actual events and that a highly sophisticated civilization did once exist prior to those of Egypt and Sumer. Tying its cataclysmic fall to the mysterious disappearance of Cro-Magnon culture,
Before the Pharaohs offers a compelling new view of humanity’s past.
Customer Reviews:
Before the Pharaohs: Egypt's Mysterious Prehistory.......2007-09-28
Flawed premise followed by equally flawed argumentation can lead you to any conclusion you wish to find. This book is no different from the multitude of books out there trying to capitalize on the basic ignorance people have of the wealth of information we really do possess about the history of pre-Dynastic Egypt.
There's no mysterious connection between the Maya and they Egyptians...their pyramids are separated not only by thousands of miles of ocean, but by thousands of YEARS in time! The Sphinx at Giza has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt to be Fourth Dynasty in its origin... and not the fanciful product of some mysterious "Lost Civilization" for which not a stitch of evidence exists anywhere in the world. The "older sphinx" debate died when unbiased geologists (Reader, Solenhofen, Harrell, etc) looked at the site and easily explained the erosion patterns they saw within the timeframe required.
This book relies upon defunct theories from the 19th century as its theoretical foundation, and then proceeds to lead the (hopefully ignorant) reader down the rabbit hole to a place that has nothing whatsoever to do with real Egyptology, Egypt, or human history.
This book, by its very nature, is not worth the money or time to read it.
Good Book.......2007-08-13
Arrived quickly and fed into a research project that I am conducting. Excellent questions and surprisingly a lot of sound answers. Good reading if you question the status quo of things.
Interesting.......2007-07-12
The book is well written and very thought provoking. Seems well balanced considering the non-orthodox conclusions made by the author. If you have an interest, like I do, in speculative prehistory, a la Graham Handcock, then you will enjoy this book. I like that the author, unlike some, does not sweepingly dismiss conventional science and orthodox views and therefore does not come off as a fringe lunatic.
Fascinating read!.......2007-05-12
I had just come back from a trip to Egypt when I ordered this book. This book is for those genuinely interested in delving into the roots of an ancient civilisation. Its not a novel - so please don't insult the author by judging it as "slow" as has been stated in another review. Its an oustandingly well-researched, fascinating and thought-provoking study for those who have so often wondered about the origins and amazing feats of engineering of the ancient Egyptians. Malkowski is a meticulous writer who takes enormous trouble to try to clarify the origins our human history and the links between ancient civilisations and gives us the chance to make up our own minds. He forces nothing upon the reader - but dangles fascinating and seductive pieces of information which will leave you wishing for more.
interesting but slow.......2007-01-09
this book has an incredible amount of fascinating information, but it is not organized well. The writing does not grab your attention, but rather, you have to force yourself to find the interesting material. It can get a bit "Von Daniken" at times-- especially the chapter about the pyramid being a power plant, but overall it is a good, solid, informative book that challenges the typical archeological canon we are all handed. If you are willing to wade through it, you will find info that is worth while.
Amazon.com
Forty years after Kenyan independence from Britain, the words "Mau Mau" still conjure images of crazed savages hacking up hapless white settlers with machetes. The British Colonial Office, struggling to preserve its far-flung empire of dependencies after World War II, spread hysteria about Kenya's Mau Mau independence movement by depicting its supporters among the Kikuyu people as irrational terrorists and monsters. Caroline Elkins, a historian at Harvard University, has done a masterful job setting the record straight in her epic investigation, Imperial Reckoning. After years of research in London and Kenya, including interviews with hundreds of Kenyans, settlers, and former British officials, Elkins has written the first book about the eight-year British war against the Mau Mau.
She concludes that the war, one of the bloodiest and most protracted decolonization struggles of the past century, was anything but the "civilizing mission" portrayed by British propagandists and settlers. Instead, Britain engaged in an amazingly brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing that seemed to border on outright genocide. While only 32 white settlers were killed by Mau Mau insurgents, Elkins reports that tens of thousands of Kenyans were slaughtered, perhaps up to 300,000. The British also interned the entire 1.5 million population of Kikuyu, the colony's largest ethnic group, in barbed-wire villages, forced-labour reserves where famine and disease ran rampant, and prison camps that Elkins describes as the Kenyan "Gulag." The Kikuyu were subjected to unimaginable torture, or "screening," as British officials called it, which included being whipped, beaten, sodomized, castrated, burned, and forced to eat feces and drink urine. British officials later destroyed almost all official records of the campaign. Elkins infuses her account with the riveting stories of individual Kikuyu detainees, settlers, British officials, and soldiers. This is a stunning narrative that finally sheds light on a misunderstood war for which no one has yet been held officially accountable. --Alex Roslin
Book Description
As part of the Allied forces, thousands of Kenyans fought alongside the British in World War II. But just a few years after the defeat of Hitler, the British colonial government detained nearly the entire population of Kenyas largest ethnic minority, the Kikuyusome one and a half million people. The compelling story of the system of prisons and work camps where thousands met their deaths was the victim of a determined effort by the British to destroy all official records of their attempts to stop the Mau Mau uprising. Caroline Elkins spent a decade in London, Nairobi, and the Kenyan countryside interviewing hundreds of survivors of the camps and the British and African loyalists who detained them. The result is an unforgettable account of the unraveling of the British colonial empire in Kenyaa pivotal moment in twentieth- century history with chilling parallels to Americas own imperial project.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting and worth reading but clearly not objective at all........2007-05-14
An earlier reviewer mentions Ruark's books, "Something of Value," and "Uhuru." "Horn of the Hunter," is another good East Africa piece, although it does not go so much into the Mau Mau Emergency. I would definitely recommend reading Ruark's works to get the other extreme of the East Africa/Mau Mau issue.
Clearly, Elkins is biased in favor of Mau Mau & the Kikuyus in general, probably with reasons of her own. There clearly was some outrageous stuff going on in Kenya during the 1950s-60s, and still probably is.
There can be little doubt the British were out of line, to put it mildy and so were the Mau Mau, also to put it mildly.
This book has a great footnote section where anyone who is really interested in the facts can go for further reading. In all, this is an interesting book, though written in a very dry & tawdry style. It is certainly biased far in favor of Mau Mau and against the British and should be looked on as such.
Elkins would have made a far more powerful impression on this reader if she had at least attempted some journalistic objectivity.
Take with several LARGE pinches of salt.......2007-01-18
The book is very biased towards the Mau Mau side first of all.
Second she has relied heavily on oral textimonies which she fails to question the validity of. Some of these testimonies are laugh out loud ridiculous. She may have noted that testimonies like this have been through out of African and European courts for being made up in order to secure financial compensation. Elkins rubbishes similar statements made by European and Black loyalists.
Elkins also ignores or defends Mau Mau atrocities.
Lastly she asserts that 300,000 people died during the course of the emergency, the only evidence for this is the difference between two censuses. Colonial census were notoriously inaccurate and the main reason the British managed to hide any atrocities they did commit was because they were comitted small scale. 300,000 deaths would have been impossible to keep a secret. Anderson claims around 30,000 Mau Mau died during the course of the rebellion which is closer to the truth.
Good and Depressing.......2007-01-04
This book is very well researched and written. It's also very depressing. The story needs to be told. Excellent for understanding post WWII British imperialism.
An important story interred in academic prose.......2006-08-21
Imperial Reckoning is a curiously disappointing book. It exposes us to a shockingly brutal and little known side of late empire British imperialism with overwhelming documentation, but in such flat prose that the horror and indignation proper to such events is leached away in a numbingly endless drizzzle of facts. This book seems a huge body of tragic facts in search of an organizing narrative. So much so that its chapters could be read in any random order without changing the book's overall readability. Historical tragedies, as much as heroic triumphs turn on random quirks of fortune and clashes of strong personalities, but in academic literature they seem to float on a sluggish tide of inevitable events, usually seen in retrospect and shrouded in a sanctified flotsam of documentation.
Professor Elkins gives some capsule vignettes of the principal colonial administrators, but the central player of this historical drama, Jomo Kenyatta--the colony's most famous political prisoner and later to become Kenya's first president, is presumed so familiar to the reader as to warrant almost no further space. Though he is mentioned repeatedly, we learn only enough about him (16 years in Britain, studied at the London School of Economics, wrote a controversial book, organized a pan-African conference) to make us wonder why he's barely a footnote participant in the story. Little of the temper of the colonial times seems to surface except allegations of an extreme and virtually universal British racism. The Mau Mau terror which inspired this ghastly holocaust seems in this account have been a mere handful of assassinations--so wildly disproportionate to the response that one feels uneasily suspicious. Were the colonials really that murderously bigoted or is Ms. Elkins reluctant to portray a real threat of native terror?
It's a book one wishes had been written by Adam Hochschild (King Leopold's Ghost, Bury the Chains). There's a shocking story buried here that needs to get out. My curiosity is aroused, I want to know more, but I'll have to read a different book. I haven't the tolerance for tedium to finish this one.
Compelling.......2006-07-25
This magnificent book shows how the Brits, using methods of immense savagery, broke the Mau Mau terrorist movement in the 1950s, only to lose the entire colony of Kenya partly in response to the brutishness of their own counterterrorism.
Even though the author is an academic, and doesn't write with the verve and polish of a William Manchester, this book is gripping reading. Elkins lets the facts tell the story, and she certainly has the facts. She seems to have read every relevant document and talked with practically everybody still living who participated in the Kenyan gulag as either a victim or a perpetrator. In her acknowledgements she notes that she learned both Kiswahil and the rudiments of Kikuyu to help her with her interviews (she also had an African translator). Indeed, her book would have been impossible without the Africans' contributions.
One of the other reviewers here complains that Elkins didn't read Robert Ruark's pro-settler "Something of Value" or "Uhuru." But Ruark, an American who probably didn't talk to any Africans in Kenya except his askaris and houseboys, was a naive sucker for the settlers' racist world view. Far more tough-minded than Ruark, Elkins talked to plenty of settlers as well as Africans. The sheer accretion of facts and anecdotes, with almost every sentence footnoted, makes for an overwhelmingly persuasive case.
It is a horrific story of a system that Stalin outdid in duration and magnitude, but not in relative cruelty. Pound for pound the Brits' imprisonment of the Kikuyus, rife as it was with mutilating torture, random executions, systematic rape, enforced relocations and treachery, and massacres, was about as brutal as it gets.
And we owe it to Elkins for bringing these facts, only occasionally referenced in journalism and earlier history books, fully into the light. This is a groundbreaking, iconoclastic work that sheds a new, highly unflattering light on British imperialism. It's tough to think of Manchester's hero biographee, Churchill, in quite the same way.
Book Description
"When we captured Kigali, we thought we would face criminals in the state; instead, we faced a criminal population." So a political commissar in the Rwanda Patriotic Front reflected after the 1994 massacre of as many as one million Tutsis in Rwanda. Underlying his statement is the realization that, though ordered by a minority of state functionaries, the slaughter was performed by hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, including even judges, human rights activists, and doctors, nurses, priests, friends, and spouses of the victims. Indeed, it is its very popularity that makes the Rwandan genocide so unthinkable. This book makes it thinkable.
Rejecting easy explanations of the genocide as a mysterious evil force that was bizarrely unleashed, one of Africa's best-known intellectuals situates the tragedy in its proper context. He coaxes to the surface the historical, geographical, and political forces that made it possible for so many Hutu to turn so brutally on their neighbors. He finds answers in the nature of political identities generated during colonialism, in the failures of the nationalist revolution to transcend these identities, and in regional demographic and political currents that reach well beyond Rwanda. In so doing, Mahmood Mamdani usefully broadens understandings of citizenship and political identity in postcolonial Africa.
There have been few attempts to explain the Rwandan horror, and none has succeeded so well as this one. Mamdani's analysis provides a solid foundation for future studies of the massacre. Even more important, his answers point a way out of crisis: a direction for reforming political identity in central Africa and preventing future tragedies.
Customer Reviews:
interesting overview of complex situation.......2007-02-25
Mandani's book is not for everyone; it is written in a highly academic form and reads slowly. However, if you can get through it, there are fascinating revelations of the chronology and effect of the early colonialism upon the inhabitants of Rwanda that allow you to understand, once again, the lessons of history....that NOTHING happens in a vacuum....and we Westerners, we "great civilizers" have much to learn and much evolving to do.
I haven't finished it yet and I do wish it were an easier read...I would give it to people I know who really NEED to read it but who never will. It's just too hard.
Essential reading for anyone wanting to learn the truth about what happened in Rwanda and why!.......2006-07-01
This isn't about justifying the atrocious acts of Hutus against Tutsi in Rwanda, but about trying to understand WHY. There were reasons for the madness that went beyond ethnic differences. Read this book before passing judgement.
Heavy Sledding.......2006-01-02
Respected scholar Mahmood Mamdani offers his take on the causes of the Rwandan attempted genocide of the Tutsis and how Rwanda ought to handle the aftermath. A longtime denizen of the ivory tower, Mamdani is not writing for general audiences here: his prose is denser than a nineteenth century Supreme Court opinion and often makes finer distinctions.
There is a certain amount of this that is inevitable -- Mamdani is writing, at least partially, in response to people who have given facile explanations for the genocide (e.g. "the Hutus hated the Tutsis"), and his entirely justified reply is that it's not that simple. Mamdani makes a fascinating and very persuasive case for the exact historical causes of this particular genocide that differentiates it from other genocides of history -- colonialistic influence combining with pan-African political forces that pit nationalistic concerns against ethnic and political ones.
That said, and with full awareness that I don't have the talent to do what I'm asking Mamdani to do, I'd like to say that his argument would have gone over a lot better if he'd been better at phrasing it. His academic language was very difficult to penetrate, even by a well-intentioned postgraduate-educated guy like me. I got to thinking towards the end that he was getting a bonus every time he added "-ize" to a noun to make it a verb.
Mamdani's message that a lot of complicated problems combined to create the genocide -- from which it follows that people peddling simple, easy answers haven't been paying enough attention or are pandering to their audiences -- is important. I hope it is given deep consideration by the grad students who are best equipped with time and incentive to understand his prose, and I hope one of them figures out what I cannot: how to phrase his message in such a way that a lay audience will be willing to hear it.
When Victims become killers.......2005-08-09
A great book that is doing justice to the people that were rudely touched by the genocide. History plays a great part in influencing and explaining particular events that happen in the present but many people forget and view the event as inexplicable. Those who forget to ask the 'why' question are always liable to repeat the blunders of history since they never learn from its ugly mistakes. Prof. Mamdani is trying to undo this mistake. Many, especially in the west from their self righteous pedestal, look at the Rwandan genocide and judge. Mamdani goes behind the scenes of history to dig out the 'why' of this ugliest of human ventures. Drawing heavily on Franz Fanon, he casts a wide net covering the whole Great Lakes Region and Colonialism through the cold war, to tell us that the victims of injustice can only be free if they kill the oppressor. To become human they must deny life to the oppressor. The irony is, to overcome the monster of injustice, you must surpass its monstrosity, leading to the cycle of violence. Americans who read this book will come to understand better the whyness of 9/11; the Europeans will understand Hitler and Africans will grasp the whyness of so many coup d'etats, and finally an insight that is long overdue will dawn on us all and we will see the light. We will understand that without justice in the world those who work for peace labor but in vain. A must read book for serious peacemakers.
Reform the state and citizenship.......2005-01-14
Mahmood Mamdani is Professor of Government and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. His reputation as an expert in African history, politics and international relations has made him an important voice in contemporary debates about the changing role of Africa in a global context. Mamdani proposes that Burundi and Rwanda need to reform the state and citizenship within their own borders so that power recognizes equal citizenship rights for all based on a single criterion: residence. Without a reform in power, one that recognizes both the importance of a majority in politics and the need for fearful minorities to participate in the exercise of power, Mamdani maintains there can be no sustained reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi.
Reviewed by David S. Fick, Author of Africa: Continent of Economic Opportunities, STE Publishers, Johannesburg SA, May 2005, www.ste.co.za
Book Description
Afrocentrism. Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is,Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, The Black Atlantic also complicates and enriches our understanding of modernism.
Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy bucks this trend by arguing that the development of black culture in the Americas arid Europe is a historical experience which can be called modern for a number of clear and specific reasons. For Hegel, the dialectic of master and slave was integral to modernity, and Gilroy considers the implications of this idea for a transatlantic culture. In search of a poetics reflecting the politics and history of this culture, he takes us on a transatlantic tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to Jimi Hendrix to rap. He also explores this internationalism as it is manifested in black writing from the "double consciousness" of W. E. B. Du Bois to the "double vision" of Richard Wright to the compelling voice of Toni Morrison.
In a final tour de force, Gilroy exposes the shared contours of black and Jewish concepts of diaspora in order both to establish a theoretical basis for healing rifts between blacks and Jews in contemporary culture and to further define the central theme of his book: that blacks have shaped a nationalism, if not a nation, within the shared culture of the black Atlantic.
Customer Reviews:
Delivery took longer than expected.......2007-05-14
The book was in very good condition, but it took longer than expected to receive it.
In Conversation About the Origin and Intellect of "Black" Expression.......2006-10-16
Paul Gilroy's The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness begins with a clear problematic. Prevailing historical authority subscribes to racial, ethnic, or national essentialism in analyzing "blackness." This reduces the cultural and political history of "black" people to a physics of isolated particles. Instead of unrelated national histories, Gilroy seeks a postnational account of the black Diaspora. Gilroy's effort involves searching for common modes of reason across hybrid black Atlantic cultures. He believes that the academic endeavor of African studies, when framed by the nation state as a mode of inquiry (e.g. "African-American studies") can not engage the African Diaspora as a liquid phenomenon that is in constant dialogue with itself. For Gilroy, this Diaspora does not "fit" in the compartments of national boundaries. These boundaries impair present-day political resistance because they deny an alternative to European cultural hegemony in articulating the black relationship to modernity. Moreover, these boundaries obscure the hybrid legacy of prevailing "western" civilization.
Importantly, Gilroy diverges from a number of other thinkers (in fields as diverse as Communications, Anthropology, and History) as to the origins of "black" artistic expression. Scholars like Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, and Lawrence Levine would contend that black culture maintains an essential orality in the midst of modernity. Each has a way to avoid the tendency of this contention to exoticize blackness. (McLuhan concludes that modernity is oral and that technology is an extension of sensation in his "Gutenberg Galaxy" and "Understanding Media." Ong systematizes the cognitive aptitudes of oral and literate worldviews in his aptly titled "Orality and Literacy." Levine concludes that black expressive forms have been gradually inscribed by modernity in the century following the Civil War in his seminal "Black Culture and Black Consciousness.") These thinkers embody the idea of "latent orality" which framed the prevailing academic status of black cultural expression in the 1960s and 1970s.
A major figure who broke this paradigm in the 1980s was Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates articulates a sophisticated and literate intellectual tradition through the way in which black vernacular signifies upon itself. The result is a critical conversation on political subjectivity within black expression. This resists the reduction of black cultural texts to latent orality or the reduction of black intellect to assimilation of Western knowledge aesthetics. Gates shows that black expression has a sophisticated textual criticism that predated and survived European hegemony. But for Gilroy, this does not go far enough.
Gilroy sees "textuality" itself as a problematic instrument in analyzing black music. He ties the moral basis of black music to a critique of modernity in what he calls a "politics of transfiguration." In contrast to Gates's critique of black vernacular, Gilroy sees in black music an invocation to literacy (critical discourse that is abstract from present circumstance) that is morally constituted of a critique of the shortfallings of modernity. In other words, whereas Gates sought a distinctly African means of achieving critical thought as rooted in European knowledge aesthetics (a mind-body split--Gates's signification is a sophisticated life of the mind above the body), Gilroy sees the counterculture of modernity as negating this split between "ethics and aesthetics, culture and politics (page 39)." Whereas Gates shows that literacy and reason are not solely European genealogies, Gilroy shows that black vernacular is not necessary for black reason. For Gilroy, black expression ("counterculture") is a moral signification upon modernity. This counterculture does not reify textuality because it objects to knowledge as something abstract to the human lifeworld, a hallmark of European thought. Gilroy's counterculture is thus a "post-literate" mode of reason, an engagement with the intellectual future rather than the intellectual present (Gates) or the intellectual past (McLuhan/Ong/Levine).
a textual odyssey of rethinking black political culture........2001-09-03
In "The Black Atlantic" Paul Gilroy constructs an excellent text based on the black diasporic experience. His views of black culture as being a dynamic networked construct based on the idea of the diaspora derived from Jewish culture, is an illuminating concept that contains great substance. Gilroy's underlying transnational humanism (that can be read in his latest pseudo-utopian work "Against Race") and vital rethinking about the perils of cultural nationalism and the urgent benefits of a unique hybrid culture is a thoroughly needed breath in the stasis of linear monocultural thinking. The book functions in an excellent manner in addressing the complex dynamics of slavery, colonization, and their inherent residual effects on black political culture. In addition the method in which Gilroy weaves Adorno, Hendrix, hip-hop culture, Du Bois, Wright, Hegel and a host of others in a clear and eloquent manner is cause for reading in itself. In a nutshell, this is a valuable sociological and philosophical work that creates a rupture in linear, absolutist views of history, sexuality, identity and other various elements in relation to black particularity. In this book Gilroy composes the dynamics of intercultural exchange (whether artistic, political, social, moral etc.) as well as attributing to socialized historical memory through its brilliant text.
Disavowal of Double Consciousness.......2000-09-09
The Black Atlantic is an attempt to call to attention the contribution of the slaves to the progression of modernity. Submitting himself to the operation of Western modernity, Gilroy recognizes that there exists a double consciousness in the black flesh, that is, the black sees his own image through the 'other.' However, as to me, we should find the third term--denegation to revolute against the metaphysic difference and cultural strength instead. Denegation in its very essence is not to break down the established but rather to hold a critical eye on the contigent cultural transformation and has the self recognize the alterity.
An insightful look at black transglobal culture.......1999-01-15
Paul Gilroy brings a fresh eye and mind to the challenging task of examining black cultural and political manifestations as they affect the transglobal community. Gilroy, unlike some cultural theorists, sees the interconnectedness between those discourses around race, class, gender, and sexuality and its impact on the black and world communities. It is his articulation of how these entities are intertwined that makes for a fresh and insightful examination of contemporary black diasporic experience.
Book Description
Contemporary West African culture harbors rich and meaningful spiritual traditions. Yet, there are few written records of West Africa's major beliefs, rituals, and ceremonies. The Way of the Elders co-authored by a West African native raised in the Mande tradition offers rare and authentic insight into the spirituality of West Africa, and particularly the Mande culture.
This spiritual guidebook explains fundamental beliefs, such as reverence for the One Spirit, that permeate tribal life. Offerings, charms, herbal healing, shamans and their functions, the importance of wildlife, and the four elements of nature are discussed in detail. The second half of the book is devoted to sacred living and focuses on village life, sacred music and dance, pregnancy, birth, childhood initiation, marriage, death, and funerals.
Customer Reviews:
Taken out of Context.......2007-05-12
please pay no mind to kaioatey's comments. The book is meant to discuss the spiritual aspect of West African (particularly Mande) culture. It is not a book about divination or sorcery. Kaioatey's comments are ignorant for several reasons.
1. Using Benin as an example is ridiculous because Benin is over a thousand miles away from the Mande region, which is the focus of this book.
2. West African religions are not anymore preoccupied with harming neighbors than any other religion. Many other religions justify destruction of neighbors like Yahweh's destruction of Canaan and all the first born sons of Egypt or Mohammed's forceful conversion of the Middle East in the name of Allah or the Hindu doctrine of caste systems--did the same thing to a much greater extent. This is a small part of the religion practiced by a small group within it and should not be considered the focus; just as it would not be appropriate to judge a book discussing the spirituality of Islam or Christianity because it did not talk about the damaging effects these religions had because of their expansionist approach. Just the same, just because some West Africans may misuse the religion as other cultures misuse their religion, it should not be a part of the spiritual canon of what the religion stands for. Not to mention many of the Western ideas of West African religion and use of sorcery are COMPLETELY misuderstood and inaccurate.
good reading.......2007-02-11
This is a nice book that covers many basic aspects of life among the Wolof and Fulani (Fulbe), West African peoples living in today's Senegambia, Mali and Burkina Faso. The book covers the basics of beliefs, rituals, family life, spirits etc. in an open-hearted and simple manner. Lots of little details about plants, animals, initiation, relationships with the elders, village life, music in this book.
On the down side, the authors have striven to show only the best aspects of the village life and the book appears somewhat aseptic. Any West African village is also filled with envy, greed, sorcery, conflict and Africans are well-known masters of 'witchcraft' spending inordinate amounts of material and time resources on protecting and attacking fellow villagers. Benin, from which originates most of what is known today as vodou, is just next door. There is no mention of these practices in the book, as if West Africans lived in lovey dovey New Age communes. There are no real life stories of actual people in the book, nor are there, in what in my opinion is the greatest minus of the book, any experiences and personal beliefs of the authors themselves.
Nevertheless, i recommend the book, as it shows how integrated community life is into ancestral patterns and spiritual frameworks in West Africa.
Ashe!.......2006-11-07
Its nice to see a good book published by Llewellyn for once. The author has written a simple and beautiful book for anyone interested in traditional African spirituality. The book is very well organized, and provides information on many aspects of of African spirituality as practiced in African, the Carribean, and the Americas. Highly reccomended for someone just starting out on this path.
A Jewel.......2005-03-18
The Way of the Elders: West African Spirituality and Tradition by the Doumbia's is a little jewel. Written in a very concise way, "The Way of the Elders" contains the wise voice of an African proverb. The no-nonsense, easy to relate to style the couple uses is inviting and does a great deal to put West African Spiritual tradition in perspective amidst other traditions of indigenous people around the world. The topic itself, West African Spirituality and Traditions, is immense and only beginning to be told by various authors. I have a feeling there is a lot more lurking under the surface of this book. I hope in future books the Doumbia's will be able to share and reveal more about the fascinating Bamana, Fulani,and Wolof cultures.
a touching, creative overview.......2004-11-30
The Way of the Elders has all the elements of a great book: it tells good stories, imparts cultural information, and inspires personal improvement. It is a primer on West Africa showing how spirituality is interwoven with everyday life; the two are not spoken of separately the way they often are in the western world.
The voices are both personal and scholarly. Whether you want a thorough introduction to the lives, work, artistry, and storytelling of West Africans or you just want to enjoy a lovely read, this is an excellent choice.
Book Description
In April-May 1994, 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis were massacred by their Hutu fellow citizens--about 10,000 a day, mostly being hacked to death by machete. In Machete Season, the veteran foreign correspondent Jean Hatzfeld reports on the results of his interviews with nine of the Hutu killers. They were all friends who came from a single region where they helped to kill 50,000 out of their 59,000 Tutsi neighbors, and all of them are now in prison, some awaiting execution. It is usually presumed that killers will not tell the truth about their brutal actions, but Hatzfeld elicited extraordinary testimony from these men about the genocide they had perpetrated. He rightly sees that their account raises as many questions as it answers.
Adabert, Alphonse, Ignace, and the others (most of them farmers) told Hatzfeld how the work was given to them, what they thought about it, how they did it, and what their responses were to the bloodbath. "Killing is easier than farming," one says. "I got into it, no problem," says another. Each describes what it was like the first time he killed someone, what he felt like when he killed a mother and child, how he reacted when he killed a cordial acquaintance, how 'cutting' a person with a machete differed from 'cutting' a calf or a sugarcane. And they had plenty of time to tell Hatzfeld, too, about whether and why they had reconsidered their motives, their moral responsibility, their guilt, remorse, or indifference to the crimes.
Hatzfeld's meditation on the banal, horrific testimony of the genocidaires and what it means is lucid, humane, and wise: he relates the Rwanda horror to war crimes and to other genocidal episodes in human history. Especially since the Holocaust, it has been conventional to presume that only depraved and monstrous evil incarnate could perpetrate such crimes, but it may be, he suggests, that such actions are within the realm of ordinary human conduct. To read this disturbing, enlightening and very brave book is to consider in a new light the foundation of human morality and ethics.
Customer Reviews:
Disturbing.......2007-08-22
a startleing look into the minds of the people who commited this horrible tragedy. i found myself sickened in some parts but still intrigued. wanting to read more to possibly gain insight as to why this happend. this book is very easy to follow and well put together. although i never really got an answer because the people interviewed seemed to be questioning their actions just as much as i did. great book.
Well done.......2007-06-18
This book is interesting in that it takes you into the world of those who killed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. I've often wondered how a group of people can be handed a machete and sent out to kill. What was the motivation? How did it all start? What do we, as a society, need to be aware of so this sort of thing will not happen again? This book will help to answer those questions.
An enormously important book.......2007-05-27
Machete Season recounts the story of 10 men that were responsible for horrific murders and atrocities in Rwanda. Acts that are difficult to fathom for most of us. Mr. Hatzfeld's writing is wonderful and his interviews with the killers help shed light into the horrific mindset of these men. This is a very important book to read since it makes clear the peril of group thinking and how easily the corruption of the human being can descend lower than that of the worst beasts. To dismiss these actions as pure evil is both simplistic and terribly dangerous. There are great lessons to be learned by the atrocities that were committed in Rwanda. We ought to feel a certain amount of shame for not getting involved, as a country, sooner, and we should seriously consider the utter ineffectiveness of the United Nations in conflict resolution.
Matter of horrible fact........2007-03-13
An excellent exposure of some of the killers and motivations behind the day to day genocide in Rwanda.
It gave me even more insight into the horrors of the time. I have not read the account of the survivors by the same author, but this is a good place to start. Regular citizens from the Collines tell us what we don't want to hear, confirming the complicity of the holy and the high and the fleeting satisfaction of covetousness and acquisition- All accompanied by the regular, relentless and heartless swinging of the machetes.
You feel helpless, like those unfortunates hiding in the marshes.
A great educational read........2007-03-09
This book offers insight into the minds of the killers at the time of the genocide. Make no bones about it, they actively and willingly participated in the day to day activity of killing innocent families.
It is probably better to do some research on the topic before reading this book, to get the most out of it. The book is well written and candid, my only criticism is it becomes a little repetitive at times.
However getting convicted killers to talk for a book is a great coup, as most in Western Worlds are reticent to do so, or are not honest.
Book Description
An account of the author’s grueling, but ultimately successful, journey in 1957, through Africa’s remote, primitive Kalahari Desert, in search of the legendary Bushmen, the hunters who pray to the great hunters in the sky.
Customer Reviews:
van der Post right on.......2007-06-27
Laurens van der Post is frequently and correctly cited for his effusive language and exaggerations, but this account of the Bushmen and their environs is fairly close to the truth and makes great reading. I ordered this copy to replace the one I lent to my professor of African Studies at the Air Force War College (which he kept). He thought it was one of the best expositions of the life and circumstances of the bushmen and based on my limited knowledge from classwork on the subject it seems to be on target.
I Loved the Book Anyway.......2007-05-25
It has been twenty years since I read this book, but it left a strong impression on me for its beautiful writing and images. In spite of what the one Amazon reviewer said, I would still recommend the book for its adventure and wonder, even if it is not an entirely true story. Just keep in mind that it might have a big dash of fiction. In a strange way, though, it makes the book even more interesting.
The one Amazon reviewer said, "Anyone who is thinking about reading this book should know that VDP was a major BS artist. Very good at it too, was a friend of royalty and also Jung. If you can find it, read J.D.F. Jones "Storyteller: The Lives of Laurens Van Der Post". To his credit, he did oppose apartheid."
Behind any book, there is often a very strange reality.
A book filled with love and dignity.......2004-10-07
An older friend of mine met Laurens Van der Post in Australia and described him as "a wonderful man." A large part of the joy of reading "Kalahari," his best-known book, comes from the experience of his transparent honesty and honest heart. His writing style is as wonderful as the man was--unpretentious, without "side," and ever positive and life-affirming. Van der Post did a fine service in revealing how trivial and unconnected our modern traits of cynicism and meaninglessness appear before the Bushmen's selfless creed. This is one of the great books of pilgrimage.
Should come with warning label.......2002-01-08
Anyone who is thinking about reading this book should
know that VDP was a major BS artist. Very good at it too,
was a friend of royalty and also Jung. If you can find it,
read J.D.F. Jones "Storyteller: The Lives of Laurens Van
Der Post". VDP was constantly reinventing himself. Many
of his stories about everything from his war record to
his Bushman connections were exaggerated or just plain
invented. People loved to hear this stuff about the great
white hunter, the ancient heart of Africa, blah blah blah.
To his credit, he did oppose apartheid.
If you want an readable book on the Bushmen, try Elizabeth
Marshall Thomas' "The Harmless People". At least she actually
knew them!
BTW The film is called "The Lost World of the Kalahari",
BBC 1958. Don't know if you can get it on video. A better bet
would be "Kalahari Desert People", by John Marshall.
More About Van Der Post than the Bushmen.......2001-11-13
Laurens Van der Post is one of those writers -- at least on the evidence of this book -- for whom it is not enough simply to master his material; he also has to dominate it. His descriptions and accounts of the bush of Southern Africa are indeed compelling. Unfortunately, they are far too often buried under considerably less interesting material. I wanted to see and hear a whole lot more of the Kalahari and the Bushmen and a whole lot less of Van der Post's incessant insistence on his relation to the desert, his relation to the Bushman, his troubles with the cinematographer he hired to photograph his search. Also, this book was written in 1959, in the United States a time well before the Civil Rights movement and in Southern Africa a time of apartheid and white colonialism. Van Der Post is very much a man of his era and the book is replete with paternalism and grousings about the black porters in his expedition. Finally, his leadership is abysmal. He takes his party to a huge swamp in the Okavango where to any casual observer the elusive Bushman (Bushman, Laurens, not Waterman) would be least likely to be found. This gross miscalculation takes up well over a third of the book and must have sorely tried the patience of those in his expedition even more than it tried the patience of this reader. In fairness, for those unfamiliar with the Bushman and the Kalahari and Okavango of Southern Africa, this book does serve, despite Van der Post's flawed, and heavy-handed writing.
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Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda
In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo
The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya
