Customer Reviews

The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa (National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century)

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This book is a series of essays written by Lemarchand, one of the most respected historians of the Great Lakes region of Africa. Ranging from the nature of the Burundi genocide of 1972 to the the parallels and differences between the Rwandan and German genocides, the essays show off Lemarchand's breadth and depth of knowledge about the subject. For someone with a more than passing familiarity with the subject, Lemarchand's insights cast some light on a subject that still remains in the dark. However, the structure of the book, lends itself to both episodic and repetitive accounts, where Lemarchand, having found a metaphor or turn or phrase that he likes, will repeat it in three different essays. It thus also fails to give a sense of structure to the vast interconnected series of events in the Great Lakes over the past several decades. Readers who don't have a sense of Rwandan-Burundian-Congolese history already will be better off seeking a more superficial account that offers the flow of one event into another.

I also have to gripe about Lemarchand's practice on several occasions of phrasing the concluding idea to an argument in French, a language in which I remain lamentably ignorant. Lemarchand at several points concludes a point as, paraphrased, "Perhaps this is best described as [French phrase]." The irritation this causes for a reader who is interested in the subject but doesn't speak French is hard to overemphasize.

Lemarchand has written a book for people who already have a decent knowledge of Great Lakes history and speak French. Those people may find the essays of a pre-eminent Great Lakes scholar thought-provoking, though not groundbreaking. Others may find the work either confusing or irritating.

This is an integrative and masterful analysis of conflicts in Central Africa, covering mostly the last 40 or so years. It is more a series of essays than a narrative history, more insight than explanation. Lemarchand is the deepest Central African social thinker I have come across, but in jumping to insights, he assumes a familiarity with the subject that few non-academics will possess.

If you are to read this work, you will need a reasonable familiarity with the various ethnic groups of Central Africa: Hutus, Tutsis, Twa, Banyamulenge, and their histories. You will need to be familiar with the timeline of history in Rwanda, the Congo, and to some extent Burundi. In short, to experience this work as an integrative and masterful synthesis, and not a frustrating and confusing mess, the genocide in Rwanda and the recent war in the Congo will have to be for you old and familiar news.

If you are not familiar with the history, you can begin with Stephen Kinzer "A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It." This is a good history focused on Rwanda's current leader, Paul Kagame. While it paints a very rosy picture of a leader many would accuse of genocidal acts in the Congo, it is nevertheless a solid work. For an account up through the genocide, which borders on academic seriousness, and is like Lemarchand, chock full of insight, consider Gerard Prunier's "Rwanda's Crisis." Prunier's work on "Africa's First World War" in the Congo is also much acclaimed. For a more journalistic account of that crisis, try "Dancing on the Heads of Monsters," by Jason Stearns. And for more personal accounts of the genocide, and how life goes on in the villages, my favorites are from the Jean Hatzfeld trilogy.

This

Vision and detailed study of the subject in the title. Its not an easy read, but then again its not and easy subject.
Bravo.