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In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtzby Michela Wrong
HarperCollins 2009; US$ 10.99Known as "the Leopard," the president of Zaire for thirty-two years, Mobutu Sese Seko, showed all the cunning of his namesake -- seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's copper and diamond resources, downing pink champagne in his jungle palace like some modern-day reincarnation of Joseph Conrad's crazed station manager. Michela Wrong, a correspondent who witnessed Mobutu's last days, traces the rise and fall of the idealistic young journalist who became the stereotype of an African despot. Engrossing, highly readable, and as funny as it is tragic, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz assesses... more...
Mobutu's Totalitarian Political Systemby Peta Ikambana
CRC Press 2006; US$ 138.00Mobutu's political system, inaugurated in 1965 and lasting more than three decades, met all the characteristics of totalitarianism. This study shows that the failures and misdeeds of Mobutu's system were clear evidence that it lacked an African-centered vision and did not put the interests of the African people of Congo (formerly, Zaire) at the center of this political project. Mobutu failed to promote the well-being of the African people of Congo. Mobutu's political actions in the 90s, mostly as they related to the National Sovereign Conference, are critically analyzed and found to be a deliberate attempt to obstruct the momentum of democracy for the African people of Congo. From an Afrocentric standpoint, the obstruction is evidence of Mobutu's... more...
The African Stakes of the Congo Warby John F. Clark
Palgrave Macmillan 2006; US$ 95.00This volume analyzes the Congo conflict by looking at the roles played by various states and factors in the conflict. It introduces the conflict, examines those states and groups involved, and looks at the social and economic effects of the war by examining trans state factors. more...
Imagining the Congoby Kevin Dunn
Palgrave Macmillan 2003; US$ 130.00Understanding the civil war in the Congo requires an examination of how its identity has been imagined over time. This text historicizes and contextualizes the constructions of the Congo's identity in order to analyze the political implications of that identity. more...
The Tragic state of the Congoby Jeanne M. Haskin
Algora Publishing 2007; US$ 29.95The Congo is rich in minerals and agricultural potential. What keeps it from emerging as a viable, even prosperous, state? During four centuries of the slave trade, the Portuguese alone claimed over 13.25 million lives. Then, King Leopold II of Belgium to more...
The Congo Warsby Thomas Turner
Zed Books 2007; US$ 37.95Since 1996 war has raged in the Congo while the world has looked away. Waves of armed conflict and atrocities against civilians have resulted in over three million casualties, making this one of the bloodiest yet least understood conflicts of recent times. In The Congo Wars, Thomas Turner provides the first in-depth analysis of what happened. The book describes a resource-rich region, suffering from years of deprivation and still profoundly affected by the shockwaves of the Rwandan genocide. Turner looks at successive misguided and self-interested interventions by other African powers, including Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia, as well as the impotence of United Nations troops. Cutting through the historical myths so often used to understand... more...
The Congoby David Renton; David Seddon; Leo Zeilig
Zed Books 2006; US$ 35.95This is an immensely readable, radical introduction to the Congo that pays attention to the importance of economic production for social organization. It traces the story of the Congo from the unleashing of King Leopards fury across the region in the 19th century, to the Western-sponsored murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, to the war that has ravaged the country since 1997. The authors argue that the nature of global capitalism has led to the expansion of private capital accompanied by social collapse. As for the future, the hope is that another politics will emerge from the resistance of ordinary Congolese to imperialist slaughter and the post-independence Mobutu dictatorship. more...
Democratic Republic of the Congoby Joseph R. Oppong; Tania Woodruff
Infobase Publishing 2007; US$ 30.00Introduces the readers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country valiantly struggling to recover from historical abuse and ongoing war, a geographic paradise in the midst of political turmoil kept alive by the presence of the United Nations and 17,000 peacekeeping troops. more...
The Great African Warby Filip Reyntjens
Cambridge University Press 2009; US$ 23.00This book examines a decade-long period of instability, violence and state decay in Central Africa from 1996 to 2006. more...
America, the UN and Decolonisationby John Kent
Taylor & Francis 2010; US$ 138.00Examines the role of the UN in conflict resolution in Africa in the 1960s and its relation to the Cold War. more...









