Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa - Hardcover

Stearns, Jason

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1586489291 ISBN 13: 9781586489298

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2011

Synopsis

At the heart of Africa is Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal and unstaunchable war in which millions have died. And yet, despite its epic proportions, it has received little sustained media attention.

In this deeply reported book, Jason Stearns vividly tells the story of this misunderstood conflict through the experiences of those who engineered and perpetrated it. He depicts village pastors who survived massacres, the child soldier assassin of President Kabila, a female Hutu activist who relives the hunting and methodical extermination of fellow refugees, and key architects of the war that became as great a disaster as--and was a direct consequence of--the genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Through their stories, he tries to understand why such mass violence made sense, and why stability has been so elusive.

Through their voices, and an astonishing wealth of knowledge and research, Stearns chronicles the political, social, and moral decay of the Congolese State.

About this title

About the Author:

Jason Stearns has been working on the conflict in the Congo for the past ten years. In 2008 he was named by the UN Secretary General to lead a special UN investigation into the violence in the country. He has also worked for a Congolese human rights group, for the United Nations peacekeeping operation, and for the International Crisis Group. He is currently completing a PhD at Yale University.

Review:

""Dancing in the Glory of Monsters" is riveting and certain to become essential reading for anyone looking to understand Central Africa." --The Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2001

"The best account [of the war] so far: more serious than several recent macho-war-correspondent travelogues, and more lucid and accessible than its nearest competitor." --Adam Hochschild, The New York Times, April 1, 2011

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1586489291
• ISBN 13: 9781586489298
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400