From Genocide to Continental War: The 'Congolese' Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa by Gerard Prunier
This remarkable book sets out to explain the way in which the 1994 Rwandan genocide triggered what is sometimes termed “Africa's first world war”, the conflict in the Congo basin that sucked Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe into war, and ultimately saw the overthrow of the Mobutu regime in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and the death of 4m people.
The book is remarkable not just because Gérard Prunier, who has spent his life studying African conflicts, is able to call on every academic discipline required to comprehend this gigantic disaster, but also because he was an eyewitness to much of it himself, and frequently has telling details to offer about the behaviour and motivation of key individuals. He writes, moreover, with a verve, sophistication and wit equalled, in my experience, only by fellow French intellectual Régis Debray.
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