Brutality of Nations [Hardcover]

Dan Jacobs (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Paralleling the alleged recent blocking by the Ethiopian government, for political reasons, of international famine-relief efforts, Jacobs, author of What More Can Be Done for Children in Armed Conflict, and former executive director of the Committee for Nigeria-Biafra Relief, charges that supplies for the starving Biafran refugees during the Nigerian civil war of the late 1960s were similarly impeded by major nations, notably Britain. According to this detailed and shocking expose of cynical international power politics, by 1968 12,000 persons a day, mostly children, were dying while Red Cross access to Biafra was hampered by Nigerians supported by the British, who hoped that a Nigerian victory would secure their oil and other interests. Both Britain and the U.S., the author notes, feared that a weakened Nigeria would encourage a Soviet presence in West Africa. He suggests that greater coordination of efforts between private agencies under international conventions could more effectively combat the inertia and genocidal policies of nations.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

When can humanitarian relief agencies intervene over the objection of a sovereign state? Using the Nigerian-Biafran conflict of the late 1960s as a case study, Jacobs argues with moral urgency that humanitarian aid should be above the fray. An active participant in the effort to get food and medical supplies into Biafra, Jacobs tells his side of the sordid story: official intransigence, ineptitude, inflammatory rhetoric, diplomatic maneuvering, "illegal" night flights, the specter of genocide. Central to this unfolding drama is the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ultimately, Jacobs not only castigates British support of Nigeria but alleges a cover-up of Western complicity in obstructing food aid. His sincere, detailed narrative is recommended for libraries collecting extensively in African politics, international affairs, or the politics of humanitarian aid, and for public libraries with readers interested in these topics. Janet L. Stanley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 383 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (February 12, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394471385
• ISBN-13: 978-0394471389
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,446,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and Heartbreaking, December 5, 1999

By 

Robert Platt "montraville" (NY NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brutality of Nations (Hardcover)

We tend to remember Vietnam as the defining event of the late 60's and early 70's, but Biafra was and is ultimately more heartbreaking to contemplate, because it is nearly forgotten, even though millions died. Jacobs tells a story of valor and treachery, of relief pilots and aid workers who risked death everyday so that they could bring medicine and food into the oil-rich Biafran separatist enclave, which was completely surrounded by a huge and vengeful, British-backed Nigerian military machine bent on the Biafrans' extinction.

The book is detailed but doesn't plod, and we follow along as an ethnic pogrom festers into a civil war, and ultimately a holocaust. Along the way, all the vaunted fail-safes of our modern world, from the U.N., to the Red Cross, to the liberal governments of the U.S. and the U.K., actually aid and abet the Nigerians, and exacerbate the Biafrans' plight and prolong their agony. The U.S.S.R., long falsely seen as an anti-imperialist engine for African liberation, cynically plays its hand as cruelly as anyone else, providing military and technical assistance to the Federal Government of Nigeria whenever the West loses their stomach for it.

When millions are dead, and so many are culpable, one feels it's unfair to assign blame to any single party, but blame must be assigned. Everyone's responsible, all the way back to the imperialists who so ineptly drew the borders of what were to emerge as completely unworkable national entities. Perhaps "state failure" in Africa will ultimately be the force which credibly redraws the boundaries, but in Nigeria's case, that will only happen when the oil runs out. And Lord how high the cost will be.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE COST OF INTOLERANCE IS WAR, March 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Brutality of Nations (Paperback)

Mr. Jacobs captures the lies and deceit that Nation states engage in when resource control is the objective. In this case..oil. The sad part is that the material costs in human lives is unforgivable.

1.0 out of 5 stars Incomprehensible, October 14, 2004

By 

John Buflod (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brutality of Nations (Hardcover)

This book is not history OR journalism. It is more the ramblings of a fanatic. Jacobs skips time, place, themes, without any connection or point of reference. He jumps right into the famine without examining the political or economic conditions that caused it. There is no attempt to make this a book about Biafra--the whole work is a polemic denouncing the UK and the US and the ICRC. Truly a wretched work.

It reads more like the mumblings of a drug addled sociology professor than a work worthy of publication.