Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason K Stearns, 337 pages
The wars that have raged in and around the Congo since the mid-'90s have sometimes been described as the African equivalent of a World War, but Stearns finds a closer parallel in the Thirty Years War. Like their seventeenth century European cousin, the First and Second Congo Wars featured a disunited giant nation being fought over by its smaller neighbors, with shifting alliances and a galaxy of minor players, each with its own agenda, all of which seemed to be fighting to mutual exhaustion. This helps explain why the Congo has received so little media attention as compared to Rwanda or Darfur, where the situation was much clearer, although the casualties were an order of magnitude smaller.
Stearns navigates the confused tangle of factions and personalities with ease. Even better is his rare gift for personalization - the journalistic human interest angles flow organically into the historical narrative, and shed actual light on events, whether making concrete the reality of the human tragedy or exploring the psychology of genocidaires. The ending seems shockingly abrupt, but this is no doubt true to life, still, more material on the ongoing post-war conflicts would not have been out of place.
Sub-Saharan Africa has, for a long time, been an easy place to ignore. That time may be ending. That time should be ending. Stearns' book is a good place to start paying attention.
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