Sudan Books

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan

Benjamin Ajak, Benson Deng, Alephonsian Deng, Judy Bernstein

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: PublicAffairs Amazon Marketplace: 75 new & used starting at $4.89

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Benjamin, Alepho, and Benson were raised among the Dinka tribe of Sudan. Their world was an insulated, close-knit community of grass-roofed cottages, cattle herders, and tribal councils. The lions and pythons that prowled beyond the village fences were the greatest threat they knew.

All that changed the night the government-armed Murahiliin began attacking their villages. Amid the chaos, screams, conflagration, and gunfire, five-year-old Benson and seven-year-old Benjamin fled into the dark night. Two years later, Alepho, age seven, was forced to do the same. Across the Southern Sudan, over the next five years, thousands of other boys did likewise, joining this stream of child refugees that became known as the Lost Boys. Their journey would take them over one thousand miles across a war-ravaged country, through landmine-sown paths, crocodile-infested waters, and grotesque extremes of hunger, thirst, and disease. The refugee camps they eventually filtered through offered little respite from the brutality they were fleeing.

In They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, Alepho, Benson, and Benjamin, by turn, recount their experiences along this unthinkable journey. They vividly recall the family, friends, and tribal world they left far behind them and their desperate efforts to keep track of one another. This is a captivating memoir of Sudan and a powerful portrait of war as seen through the eyes of children. And it is, in the end, an inspiring and unforgettable tribute to the tenacity of even the youngest human spirits.

Darfur: A New History of a Long War (African Arguments)

Julie Flint, Alex de Waal

Amazon Price: $12.24 List Price: $18.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Zed Books Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $10.87

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> East Africa
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> North Africa
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Sudan

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Instructive look at Darfur 5 out of 5 stars.
23 of 34 people found this review helpful.

There are plenty of serious human rights abuses in Africa which Westerners, particularly American corporations and arms dealers have strong complicity in: the 4 million dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia under Meles Zenawi, Equatorial Guinea under Teodor Obiang, Chad under Idriss Deby, Uganda under Museveni. One can also mention the horrors of the neoliberal economic model which African governments have followed so studiously. But Sudan and Zimbabwe seem to take up 90 percent of recent Western media reporting about abuses in the region. Both governments, vile as they certainly are, have struck independent courses via US power over the years and so are demonized in the US media. Former Senator John Danforth, US ambassador to the UN in 2004, stated on British tv in 2005 that the main reason the Bush administration made noises about Darfur in the election year of 04' was to please the voting block of fundamentalist Christians who have long believed the Sudanese regime to be satanic.

There is plenty of stuff in this book about the barbaric atrocities of the Sudanese government and the Janjiweed, the paramilitary force which acts as a proxy for the Sudanese military in Darfur.. In Darfur, the driving Arab supremacist ideology was rooted in the "Arab Gathering" group which emerged under the backing of Colonel Qadaffi of Libya in the 70's and 80's. Many in Sudan's government have been influenced by this ideology. The authors provide much quotation from these brethren who stress the need to make Darfur a purely Arab homeland and to cleanse it of non-Arab elements. Qadaffi funded the Sudanese Islamist/Arab nationalist groups Ansar and Muslim Brothers against his enemy, Sudan's then dictator Jafarr Nimieri in the 70's and early 80's. Many in these groups ended up in positions of power after the Islamist regime took power in June 1989. Qadaffi also funded Arab supremacists in Chad during the 80's, many of whom found refuge in Darfur and have since made not insignificant contributions to the violence there.

It also appears from the authors' discourse that the conflict is driven by the struggle for land and water in an area which has seen much drought, and a dwindling supply of water and arable land.....
The authors point out that Arabs of the Bagarra Rizeigat--to which the majority of Arabs in Darfur belong--have kept out of the conflict.... A not insignificant number of the janjiweed are violent criminals released from Sudan's prisons to serve in that body......

Bagarra Rizeigat have protected refugees from Janjiweed terror. The Bagarra Rizeigat chief, Saeed Madibu has resisted efforts by the Khartoum government to bribe him and terrorize him into submission. The authors seem to imply that most of the Arab tribal elites in Darfur would greatly prefer peaceful social, political and commercial interaction between Arabs and African tribes instead of the apopaclyptic ideology of a Darfur cleansed of all black people that Janjiweed leaders profess. Saeed Madibu, in a contumacious act to the Khartoum government, has resurrected meetings of Darfurian tribal elders to negotiate in an equitable fashion, land and resource issues.

One of the two Darfurian opposition groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) is divided between two tribal based factions, the Fur, led by Abdel Wahid and the Zaghawa, led by Minnie Minawi. These two groups spend alot of time making war upon each other, rather than upon the Sudanese army and Janjaweed. They mention that the SLA, perhaps a joint action of the two factions, attacked Bagarra Rizeigat territory in the Summer of 2004 and burned villages, stole livestock and engaged in other such activities at which the Janjiweed are such experts but Said Madibu's forces drove them out of their land.

The JEM is much more sophisticated. Islamists disillusioned with the extreme corruption and violence of the Khartoum regime seem to make up a significant part of the JEM's leadership. In interviews with one or another of the authors, the JEM leaders disavow any association with Hassan Al-Turabi, the Islamist scholar who was Sudan's de facto ruler throughout the 90's until he lost a power struggle with the country's president General Omar Hassan Al-Bashir in 2000 and was thrown into prison. Turabi had attracted many to his cause in the 70's and 80's because he spoke of a brotherhood of Muslims regardless of race and spoke out against the extreme corruption and inequality in Sudan's society. JEM leaders, according to the authors' interview of them, think that Turabi is a disgusting fraud and don't want anything to do with him. However many of them are specifically committed to setting up an Islamic state in the Sudan, which they say will grant freedom of worship to other faiths and will fullfill the ideals of honesty and equality in government that Turabi's variety of Islamists promised back in the 80's but have made such a mockery of in practice. The leaders of the JEM are often former national and regional officials under the current regime and provide the authors with stories probably containing at least some truth, illustrating their own virtue when they were in the service of the current regime, in the midst of grotesque brutality and corruption.

The authors mention the US and UK backed Naivasha accords that ended the civil war in Southern Sudan in 2005. In that accord the oil revenues are to be evenly divided between North and South, the SPLA has become the autonomous ruler of the South and army units in the capital are divided 50/50 in membership between the SPLA and the Sudanese army. SPLA leader John Garang was made first vice president of Sudan but he died in a mysterious plane crash shortly after the Naivasha accords. However the war criminals in both the Sudan government and the SPLA were granted amnesty from prosecution.....The authors note the desire for stability in south Sudan with its strategically important oil wealth by the US and UK, the Naivasha accord backers. Darfur in contrast has no important resources.

Editorial Review:

The humanitarian tragedy in Darfur has stirred politicians, Hollywood celebrities and students to appeal for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Beyond the horrific pictures of sprawling refugee camps and lurid accounts of rape and murder lies a complex history steeped in religion, politics, and decades of internal unrest.

Darfur traces the origins, organization and ideology of the infamous Janjawiid and other rebel groups, including the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. It also analyzes the confused responses of the Sudanese government and African Union. This thoroughly updated edition also features a powerful analysis of how the conflict has been received in the international community and the varied attempts at peacekeeping.

Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival

Jen Marlowe

Amazon Price: $11.65 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Nation Books Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $7.65

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> East Africa
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Sudan
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In February, 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Army in Darfur (the western region of Sudan) after years of oppression took up arms against the Sudanese government. The government and allied militias answered the rebellion with mass murder, rape and the wholesale destruction of villages and livelihood, resulting in one of the world's largest humanitarian and political crises. Up to 2 million people were displaced; 400,000 people killed. In October and November, 2004, after watching woefully inadequate media coverage on the crisis in Darfur, a team of three independent filmmakers trekked to Darfurian refugee camps in eastern Chad and crept across the border into Darfur. They met dozens of Darfurians, and spoke with them about their history, hopes and fears, and the tragedy they are living. Refugees and displaced peoples, civilians and fighters resisting the Sudanese government, teachers, students, parents, children and community leaders provide the heart of Darfur Diaries. Their stories and testimonies, woven together through the personal experience of the filmmakers, and conveyed with political and historical context, provide a much-needed account to help understand Darfur. These are people whose lives, homes, safety and rights deserve to be protected as vigilantly as those of peoples all over the world.

The Blue Nile

Alan Moorehead

Amazon Price: $11.90 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Perennial Amazon Marketplace: 71 new & used starting at $3.03

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Central Africa
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Ethiopia
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Sudan

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Very interesting background on 19th century Sudan and Ethiopia 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

I have read a lot of history on ancient Egypt and was passingly familiar with Napoleon's conquest of Egypt, however, I had absolutely no background on other aspects of 19th century Egypt and neighboring Sudan and Ethiopia.

This book was extremely enlightening with respect to such subjects as Mamaluke rule of Egypt prior to Napoleon's arrival and the subsequent reign of Muhammad Ali. However, by far the most interesting and educational part of the book was the last half which dealt primarily with the reign of Theodore, Emperor of Ethiopia and the British invasion to secure the release of European hostages held by Theodore. Prior to reading this book, I'd never heard of Theodore nor the British invasion of Ethiopia.

Blue Nile is a companion piece to White Nile, the Blue Nile being the Nile tributary which feeds into the river at Khartoum, Sudan having flowed from its source in the Ethiopian highlands. Moorehead does a very good job in describing the various expeditions which sought the source of the Blue Nile as well as the political and social anarchy endemic to the region.

Editorial Review:

In the first half of the nineteenth century, only a small handful of Westerners had ventured into the regions watered by the Nile River on its long journey from Lake Tana in Abyssinia to the Mediterranean-lands that had been forgotten since Roman times, or had never been known at all. In The Blue Nile, Alan Moorehead continues the classic, thrilling narration of adventure he began in The White Nile, depicting this exotic place through the lives of four explorers so daring they can be considered among the world's original adventurers -- each acting and reacting in separate expeditions against a bewildering background of slavery and massacre, political upheaval and all-out war.

The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan

Winston Churchill

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Dover Publications Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $8.79

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> North Africa
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Sudan
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Warning!! No maps included in this edition 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Warning!!! Don't buy the edition of 'The River War' published by Wildside Press (ISBN 1592246109). It has NO MAPS OF ANY KIND. NONE. This book is primarily a description of a military campaigns, and large parts of the text, including almost all of the discussion of strategy and tactics, are almost incomprehensible without a map. Unless you already know where Korti and Metemma are, not to mention Suakin, Korosko, and Abu Hamed, get another edition.

honesty vs loyalty? 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Winston Churchill had the opportunity to say many things and one of them was "I have not become the Queen's first minister in order to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire". Or was it the "... the King's first minister..."? I don't recall whether it was his first or second term as Prime Minister. In any case, history recalls WSC as a Imperialist in the grand tradition with all the baggage that may entail. However, before we join in that celebration or condemnation, let us read carefully some passages from The River War.

First we read "What enterprise that an enlightened community may attempt is more noble and more profitable than the reclamation from barbarism of fertile regions and large populations? To give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence.....etc,etc" All very conventional late 19th stuff believed by the great majority of Europeans and North Americans of the time. But a few sentances later we find "Yet as the mind turns from the wonderful clouldland of aspirations to the ugly scaffolding of attempt and achievement, a succession of opposite ideas arises." Churchill then goes on to detail the struggle of those "tenacious of liberty" who oppose the imperial task and the "greedy trader","inopportune missionary","ambitious soldier" and "lying speculator" who dishonor the enterprise. Then he he says "...it hardly seems possible for us to believe that any fair prospsect is approached by so foul a path".

Much later in the book as WSC is describing the aftermath of the Battle of Omdurman and the flight of the Khalifa Abdullah. He points out that Abdullah flees after the defeat of his army alone and unarmed and joins the remnants of his army and "...found many disheartened friends; but the fact that, in this evil plight, he found any friends at all must be recorded in his favor and in that of his subjects." He goes on to point out that this "tyrant, oppressor,...scourge...embodiment, as he has been depicted to European eyes, of all the vices; the object, as he was believed in England, of his people's bitter hatred, found safety and welcome among his flying soldiers."

I am not ripping these statements from context. Churchill repeatedly pays tribute to the courage of his enemies, who indeed at one climactic moment were trying their personal best to turn his body into chopped meat, and clearly, as other reviewers have pointed out, gives tribute to Krupp, Maxim, Nordenfelt, Lee, Metford, Martini and Henry and their like contributers to the Machine Age civilization that enabled the reconquest of the Sudan. He never attributes any other motives to his Arab enemies than rational calculation of self interest, planning and thoughfulness, no condescension of uknowable savage impulses or fanatical behaviour, though great willingness to fight and die.

So where does this leave us? Winston Churchill was both a young man of his class and time and also possessor of some level of moral honesty that was with him at an early age. That made him tell the truth about what he saw. In June 1940, that individual moral honesty was all that prevented a long lasting German National Socialist State from taking root in Europe with incalculable consequences.

It is well to ponder all this as we read The River War. As other reviewers have pointed out, the stage of violence at the end of the 19th century is a stage of violence at the beginning of the 21st century. The facts and nature of war among human beings stays the same along with our inability to avoid it. Let us at least be with Winston Spencer Churchill in being honest about it.






Q

Editorial Review:

This instructive treatise on a Middle Eastern conflict was written by one of history's greatest figures. Churchill recounts the operations directed by Lord Kitchener on the Upper Nile from 1896 to 1899, offering valuable insights into a historic clash of Western and Arabic cultures. 22 maps and plans.

The Journey of the Lost Boys: A Story of Courage, Faith and the Sheer Determination to Survive by a Group of Young Boys Called "The Lost Boys of Sudan"

Joan Hecht

Amazon Price: $19.95 List Price: $19.95 In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served. By: Allswell Press Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $9.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> North Africa

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Imagine you’re a young boy—maybe as young as three or four—separated from your family by civil war, traversing deserts and mountains with little food or water, no medical care, and no protection from wild animals. Imagine watching hundreds of boys perish around you from hunger, disease, or attacks by enemy soldiers and wild animals. To most of us, it is unimaginable, but this was reality for "The Lost Boys of Sudan," thousands of young boys who were separated from their families and forced to walk approximately 1,000 miles to reach safe refuge from war and certain death.

For the first time, this award winning book offers readers a chronological timeline of the epic journey taken by these children, beginning in their rural villages of Southern Sudan and ending with their arrival as young men to the United States. Narrated through the voice of Joan Hecht, one of their American mentors, whom they lovingly call "mom" or "Mama Joan;" "The Journey of the Lost Boys" is a compelling story of courage, faith and the sheer determination to survive by a group of young orphaned boys. Because of Joan Hecht’s personal relationship with them, she is able to portray their story in a way that most famous reporters and authors cannot. In addition to her extensive research of the political and historical events surrounding the long lasting civil war in Sudan, are the heart-rending personal stories and original drawings of the boys themselves. A must read for anyone interested in the the true story of the Lost Boys of Sudan!

God Grew Tired Of Us: A Memoir

John Bul Dau, Michael Sweeney

Amazon Price: $17.16 List Price: $26.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: National Geographic Amazon Marketplace: 74 new & used starting at $1.04

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This unforgettable book is the first-person account of a miracle—indeed, a whole series of miracles. A tale of suffering, tragedy, and sorrow redeemed by indomitable resolve and a stubborn refusal to despair, it's set in a Sudan shadowed by unrelenting war and ruthless violence, yet illuminated by faith, generosity, and steadfast commitment to the human spirit's finest instincts. It's also the eloquently plain-spoken self-portrait of a young man who has looked death in the face many times and come away with an inner strength as impressive as it is modest and a wisdom as inspiring as it is matter of fact.

One of the uprooted youngsters known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, John Bul Dau was 12 years old when civil war ravaged his village and shattered its age-old society, a life of herding and agriculture marked by dignity, respect, and the simple virtues of Dinka tribal tradition. As tracer bullets split the night and mortar shells exploded around him, John fled into the darkness—the first terrified moments of a journey that would lead him thousands of miles into an exile that was to last many years.

John's memoir of his Dinka childhood shows African life and values at their best, while his searing account of hardship, famine, and war also testifies to human resilience and kindness. In an era of cultural clashes, his often humorous stories of adapting to life in the United States offer proof that we can bridge our differences peacefully. John Bul Dau's quiet pride, true humility, deep seriousness, compassionate courage, and remarkable achievements will take every reader’s breath away.

Sudan: Race, Religion and Violence

Jok Madut Jok

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oneworld Publications Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $4.39

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> North Africa
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Sudan
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The best book on Sudan 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is one of the most important books on Sudan to come out in recent years and to highlight many important themes dealing with the genocide in Sudan and the earlier genocide against Christian Africans in Southern Sudan at the hands of the Islamist Arab government in Khartoum. The author dares to skewer even the international Aid organization, which he says have allowed the perpetrators of genocide to get off the hook by providing them with lavish villas. For instance over $380,000 was spent by humanitarian aid missions to renew their visas in Khartoum, money that has gone to support the genocide.

One of the great lies of the conflict is that it is due to `global warming' an excuse that lets the genocidaires off the hook by ascribing the conflict to a contest over `scarce resources' ( a similar excuse could be used about the Holocaust, since Hitler said the Germans needed `living space' an equally specious claim). This book dares to tell how the government has mass engineered the genocide.

This book begins in the 1950s with the winding down of colonialism and shows how the British betrayed the Sudan by refusing the grant the Black Christian and Animist south its right to break away from the Arab-Muslim north. Instead the British, as was their policy throughout the empire, supported the Muslim half of the country (as they did in Palestine and Pakistan).

The boo describes the religious dimension but then moves on talk about the region-ethnic-racial dimension of the conflicts. The author expertly describes rebellions among the Nubians in the North and Eastern tribes, all of whome felt the government in Khartoum did not identify with them or was pushing them off the land. This is a masterful account from an insider who truly understand Sudan and can see both the black and white of the genocide as well as the many nuances that exist in the diverse country. An amazing book.

Seth J. Frantzman

Editorial Review:

Sudan is a country in turmoil, ravaged by civil war, plagued by roaming gangs of rebel and government militia, and is rarely out of the news. Despite government propaganda, tales of state-sponsored murder, genocide and humanitarian crises are rife, and there is a real need for a measured investigation which carefully examines the causes of the troubles.In this important book, Jok Madut Jok delves deep into Sudan's culture and past, isolating the factors that cause its fractured national identity. Highlighting the Arabization of the central government in the north and the imposition of this cultural identity upon Darfur and the Christian South, Jok analyses the vicious cycle of violence and goes on to ask what can be done to improve the plight of the Sudanese people in the future.

The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars (African Issues)

Douglas Hamilton Johnson

Amazon Price: $23.35 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Indiana University Press Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $16.94

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Egypt -> General
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Egypt -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Sudan

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

a knowledgeable big-picture view about an underserved topic 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 19 people found this review helpful.

After reading this book, you will laugh at newspaper reports that describe the conflict in Sudan as between "the Muslim north and Christian and animist south". Johnson not only has extensive academic publications in Sudanese ethnography and historiography, but also worked in the aid field in the country. He is also, in a well-sourced, calm and clearly presented manner, outraged at how thoroughly misunderstood the situation in Sudan is. The detail in this book is amazing. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable in an armchair kind of way about southern Sudan, and was consistently being presented with either facts of which I was unaware or, better yet, syntheses tying together various fields in a historical perspective. The offensives, famines, factionalism within southern groups, agricultural schemes, external mediators, forced displacement patterns, and competing aid agencies are all here, and presented so one can see the linkages. This is one of the rare books in which, for example, the connection between the timing of government offensives to seasonal rainfall is convincingly fit within framework of underdevelopment as a political strategy.

There are a couple points that made me consider moving this down to four stars. One is that Johnson is clearly partisan to the south. He is not fatally so in my opinion, describing some very unflattering characteristics and actions of Garang's faction, and making his bias clear from the beginning. By the end of the book, he also makes a strong case that "neutrality" has been misused or abused in the context of the Sudanese wars, and led me to muse that his outrage seems to spring from his knowledge, versus some writers about southern Sudan whose outrage impedes their learning. I also occasionally found the division of the book in its latter section into thematic sections confusing, especially in cases where the text would refer to later chapters for more information about a mentioned event or process. Fortunately, the appendix includes both a detailed chronology from 1972 through 2001 and a pretty good topical index for when I needed a bit of help orienting myself. The extensive annotated bibliography would be quite useful for some people. There is also the rather obvious issue that the book was written prior to the finalization of the peace agreement and death of Garang, which makes me anxious for an update.

Bottom line: If you want to know about the conflicts in Sudan between 1983 and 2001, then this is the book. If you've read other works on Sudan, you'll be astonished at how thoroughly Johnson annihilates the common wisdom. And whoever you are, you may come to share some of Johnson's outrage.

Surrender or Starve: Travels in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea

Robert D. Kaplan

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $6.73

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Eritrea
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Ethiopia
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> Somalia

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

The worst book on the Horn of Africa I have ever read 1 out of 5 stars.
20 of 24 people found this review helpful.

Kaplan's book "Balkan Ghosts" was described by slavist H. Cooper (Slavic Review 52, 1993) as "a dreadful mix of unfounded generalizations, misinformation, outdated sources, personal prejudices and bad writing". The same can be applied to "Surrender or starve". Any specialist could point dozens of minor errors in this book, but lack of scholarship is not the worst. Kaplan is exasperatingly tendentious and partial and his extraordinary simplification and misunderstanding of the conflict in the Horn is outrageous. He overemphasizes the ethnic component, sometimes dangerously approaching racism in his contempt for the Amharas (they are all intrinsically bad). To be sure, the Derg (the communist regime) was evil, but linking a particular culture (the Amharas) with a transient political regime that was imposed against the people's will is absolutely wrong. Besides, anyone minimally informed knows how many Amharas suffered by the resettlement policies of the Derg.
Worst of all, Kaplan embraces the politics he presumedly criticizes: "Surrender or starve" is not the slogan of the former Ethiopian communist regime, it is Kaplan's own motto. According to the author, we should have left 10 million Ethiopians starve in 1984-85, so as to foster a local rebellion against communist rule! To put it bluntly, this book is scholarly defective and morally despicable.

Forget Kaplan. If you really want to be informed about the complex reality of Ethiopia and neighboring countries, take a look at any of the books written by historians Bahru Zewde and Harold G. Marcus or by anthropologist Donald Donham. And if you want to be informed and at the same time enjoy a superb literary experience go for Ryszard Kapuscinski's "The Emperor"!

Editorial Review:

Robert D. Kaplan is one of our leading international journalists, someone who can explain the most complicated and volatile regions and show why they’re relevant to our world. In Surrender or Starve, Kaplan illuminates the fault lines in the Horn of Africa, which is emerging as a crucial region for America’s ongoing war on terrorism.

Reporting from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, Kaplan examines the factors behind the famine that ravaged the region in the 1980s, exploring the ethnic, religious, and class conflicts that are crucial for understanding the region today. He offers a new foreword and afterword that show how the nations have developed since the famine, and why this region will only grow more important to the United States. Wielding his trademark ability to blend on-the-ground reporting and cogent analysis, Robert D. Kaplan introduces us to a fascinating part of the world, one that it would behoove all of us to know more about.