Covering the devastating effects of these deadly contests on the Congolese infrastructure, Congolese institutions, and people's lives, Stearns informatively reports on affairs for students of African politics.”Booklist
“He is a cracking writer, with a wry sense of understatement…Mr. Stearns has spoken to everyone—villagers, child soldiers, Mobutu's commanders, Kabila's ministers, Rwandan intelligence officers. In these conversations he found gold, bringing clarity—and humanity—to a place that usually seems inexplicable and barbaric. ‘Dancing in the Glory of Monsters' is riveting and certain to become essential reading for anyone looking to understand Central Africa.” -Wall Street Journal
“Stearns is more concerned with the perceptions, motivations, an actions of an eclectic mix of actors in the conflict—from a Tutsi warlord who engaged in massive human rights violations to a Hutu activist turned refugee living in the camps and forests of eastern Congo. He tells their stories with a judicious mix of empathy and distance, linking them to a broader narrative of a two-decade-long conflict that has involved a dozen countries and claimed six million victims.”-Foreign Affairs
“The best account [of the conflict in the Congo] so far….The task facing anyone who tries to tell this whole story is formidable, but Stearns by and large rises to it.” —Adam Hochschild, New York Times Book Review
“[A] tour de force, though not for the squeamish.” —Washington Post
“This is a serious book about the social and political forces behind one of the most violent clashes of modern times—as well as a damn good read.” —Economist
“[P]erhaps the best account of the most recent conflict in the Congo.” —Foreign Policy
“A serious, admirably balanced account of the crisis and the political and social forces behind it… perhaps the most accessible, meticulously researched, and comprehensive overview of the Congo crisis yet.” —Financial Times
“Impressively controlled account of the devastating Congo war…The book's greatest strength is the eyewitness dialogue; Stearns discusses his encounters with everyone from major military figures to residents of remote villages (he was occasionally suspected of being a CIA spy)…An important examination of a social disaster that seems both politically complex and cruelly senseless.”-Kirkus
“Stearns is a leading authority on the region, having lived there for years working for the United Nations and the International Crisis Group. He has built up a superb knowledge of Congo and how it articulates with its neighbours, particularly Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. He frequently imparts his understanding to journalists far less well-informed than he. And now he has produced a book where he makes the whole convoluted and confusing war in Congo a little more comprehensible, which is quite a feat. If you want to understand modern Congo then Stearns' book should be required reading.”-Global Post
“A brave and accessible take on the leviathan at the heart of so many of Africa's problems… Stearns's eye for detail, culled from countless interviews, brings this book alive… I once wrote that the Congo suffers from ‘a lack of institutional memory', meaning that its atrocities well so inexorably that nobody bothers to keep an account of them. Stearns's book goes a long way to putting that right.”Telegraph,
“(t)his courageous book is a plea for more nuanced understanding and the silencing of the analysis-free ‘the horror, the horror' exclamation that Congo still routinely wrings from Western lips.” -The Spectator,
Impressively controlled account of the devastating Congo war, which has caused more than 5 million deaths.
Stearns, who in 2008 led a special UN investigation regarding the region's violence, argues that the war "had no one cause, no clear conceptual essence that can be easily distilled in a couple of paragraphs." While he agrees that the 1994 Rwandan genocide provided the war's genesis, he argues that a less-understood factor was the experience of the Banyamulenge, a Tutsi group that emigrated to the Congo long before and suffered persecution ever since. The Congo was first invaded in 1996, when Laurent Kabila deposed Mobutu, but the wider war began in 1998, between disparate coalitions: Kabila's army and Hutu militias on one side, and the Rwandan military and their allies on another. "The war scuttled all plans for long-term reform and prompted quick fixes that only further debilitated the state," writes Stearns. The author illuminates the tangled relationships between Kabila, Rwandan Tutsi leader Paul Kagame and many other players as few journalists have. The book's greatest strength is the eyewitness dialogue; Stearns discusses his encounters with everyone from major military figures to residents of remote villages (he was occasionally suspected of being a CIA spy). He reveals the bravery and suffering of ordinary Africans, while underscoring "how deeply entrenched in society the Congolese crisis had become." As the chronology moves into the previous decade, his tale becomes increasingly complex and disturbing. Regional proxy wars involving rebel offshoots and tribal militia groups spun out of control, intensifying violence against civilians. Kabila was assassinated in 2001, possibly due to grudges held by angry child soldiers backed by Rwanda, and replaced by his son, who pursued a tenuous peace marred by continued economic stagnation and chaos. By that time, the belligerent nations "had over a dozen rebel proxies or allies battling each other."
An important examination of a social disaster that seems both politically complex and cruelly senseless.
