Buy New

$24.95

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon or get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

Only 1 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Buy Used

$12.82

+ $0.00 shipping

Used: Like New | Details

Sold by Thriftbooks

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Loading recommendations for you

Recommendations for you

Adding to Cart...

Added to Cart

Not Added

Item is in your Cart

View Cart

Not Added

There was a problem adding this item to Cart. Please try again later.

Sorry, we're having trouble showing recommendations right now. Please try again later.

Continue shopping

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

Follow the Author

Thomas P. Odom

Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series) Paperback – July 29, 2005

by Thomas P. Odom (Author), Dennis J. Reimer (Foreword)

7 ratings

See all 8 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$14.72

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$70.67

$55.00

$5.00

Paperback

"Please retry"

$24.95

$9.95

$8.83

In July 1994, Thomas P. Odom was part of the U.S. Embassy team that responded to the Goma refugee crisis. He witnessed the deaths of 70,000 refugees in a single week. In the previous three months of escalating violence, the Rwandan genocide had claimed 800,000 dead. Now, in this vivid and unsettling new book, Odom offers the first insider look at these devastating events before, during, and after the genocide. Odom draws on his years of experience as a Defense Attaché and foreign area specialist in the United States Army to offer a complete picture of the situation in Zaire and Rwanda, focusing on two U.S. embassies, intelligence operations, U.N. peacekeeping efforts, and regional reactions. His team attempted to slow the death by cholera of refugees in Goma, guiding in a U.S. Joint Task Force and Operation Support Hope and remaining until the United States withdrew its forces forty days later. After U.S. forces departed, Odom crossed into Rwanda to spend the next eighteen months reestablishing the embassy, working with the Rwandan government, and creating the U.S.-Rwandan Demining office. Odom assisted the U.S. Ambassador and served as the principal military advisor on Rwanda to the U.S. Department of Defense and National Security Council throughout his time in Rwanda. His book candidly reveals Odom’s frustration with Washington as his predictions that a larger war was coming were ignored. Unfortunately, he was proven correct: the current death toll in that unfortunate country is close to three million. Odom’s account of the events in Rwanda illustrate not only illustrate how failures in intelligence and policy happen, but also show that a human context is necessary to comprehend these political decisions.

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items when the Enter key is pressed. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Shaharyar M. Khan

2

Hardcover
$27.75

Latest magazine issues you may like

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

TIME Special…
Single Issue Magazine
$11.99
LIFE Special…

16

Single Issue Magazine
$13.99
LIFE Special…

3

Single Issue Magazine
$5.70
LIFE Special…

7

Single Issue Magazine
$13.99
LIFE Special…

8

Single Issue Magazine
$13.99
TIME Special…

29

Single Issue Magazine
$14.28

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Accounts by military officers who have actually served in the field are relatively rare and, as a memoir, this book is unique. [Odom] is also a perceptive observer and is skilled at translating his perceptions and conclusions into verbal images and in evoking the feel and drama of the events. In particular, the book offers valuable insights into the culture of the army at high levels, based on the author’s direct participation in key events, such as in the Gulf War, and his personal interaction with senior political and military officers. This is a darn good read!”--Norman Cigar, U.S. Marine Corps Command & Staff College

(Norman Cigar, U.S. Marine Corps Command & Staff College)

About the Author

Thomas P. Odom is a graduate of Texas A&M University. He served as an Army strategic scout for over fifteen years, with five tours in the Middle East and Africa, and as the U.S. Army’s current intelligence officer on the Middle East during the first Gulf War. Among his previous publications are two books on hostage rescues in the Congo. He is the coauthor of the U.S. Army’s history of the Gulf War.

Series: Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series (Book 10)
Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press (July 29, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 158544457X
ISBN-13: 978-1585444571
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 7 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,312,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11994 in African History (Books)
- #92973 in Military History (Books)

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Start reading Journey into Darkness on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Customer reviews

5 star		35%
4 star		36%
3 star		29%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

Review this product

Write a customer review

7 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Thomas P. Odom

From the Author

September 14, 2005

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Please forgive the self rating required by Amazon.com. Here are the jacket comments from the book

"". . . provides a rare but accurate account of the real challenges facing Rwanda and the region and why the efforts to seek solutions to the challenges have been elusive . . . Journey into Darkness is an excellent contribution to the understanding of the Rwandan genocide and its regional consequences. It is a must-read piece of work for all decision and policy makers in governments or private civic organizations."-Dr. Zac Nsenga, Ambassador of Rwanda, Washington, DC

". . . an insightful book about Africa-most especially about the terrible humanitarian crisis, genocide, and war that afflicted Rwanda and eastern Zaire in 1994 and 1995."-Robert E. Gribbin, former U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda

"This book is unique. [Odom] is a perceptive observer and is skilled at translating his perceptions and conclusions into verbal images and in evoking the feel and drama of the events. In particular, this book offers valuable insights into the culture of the army at high levels, based on the author's direct participation in key events, such as the Gulf War, and in his personal interaction with senior political and military officers." -Norman Cigar, U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College

"Colonel Odom's study is an important contribution to the literature on genocide and Africa. It should be of interest to every academic library in the country."-W. A. Terrill, U.S. Army War College

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Common Sense

Read this book!

January 23, 2009

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a fantastic book. Well-written, informative, provocative and even (gasp!) entertaining.
LTC Tom Odom was the Defense Attache in Kinshasa during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. When Rwandan refugees began pouring over the border into Zaire, Odom was sent to Goma as leader of the American embassy team. He saw first-hand the appalling conditions of the humanitarian crisis, as well as the political challenges of any attempts to address it. Many of the refugees were Hutu genocidaires, some of them still armed. After for the most part ignoring the Rwandan genocide, international attention now focused on the camps, where the persecutors were seen as victims.
Odom's primary mission was to "stop the killing." But that was impossible. Odom predicted the violence would spill over into the Congo and possibly provoke a region-wide conflict. That prediction sadly proved to be true. Whether or not the USG could have stopped the Congo War, if Odom's warnings had been heeded, the U.S. and international community might at least been able to mitigate the violence. Instead, some five million people died.
Odom offers a soldier/scholar's perspective, one that sees a humanitarian crisis as a logistical and political challenge, without losing sight of the human tragedy. The book should be read by all interested in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Great Lakes conflict, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It is also of interest to the Small Wars community, as the Congo War is one of the more complex and challenging conflicts of our time. And Journey Into Darkness is simply a great read. Odom has a gift for telling stories. He has a sense of humor that is never glib or disrespectful. His style is honest and hard-earned, the voice of a man who knows who knows who he is, and isn't afraid of the truth.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Michael J. Tsoukias

Personal view of hell on earth

August 23, 2007

Format: Paperback

I had the good fortune to read Mr Odom's earlier works when he was Major, then Lt. Colonel in active service: "Dragon operations: hostage rescues in the Congo, 1964-1965" and "Shaba II: The French and Belgian Intervention in Zaire in 1978". Both are classics of airborne operations and both were of personal interest to me as having lived some of the events first hand. The cited books provide, I believe the best coverage available to date. Both served to introduce the author to matters African and to give him a depth of preparation that is evident in the "Journey". In this latest book, Mr Odom briefly describes his military career up to his appointment as Attache in pre-genocide Zaire, then in post genocide Rwanda, and his direct involvement in those events.
The observer of those events, and of their aftermath, has long remained puzzled by certain questions: what led a seemingly peaceful and prosperous people to such depths of savagery, as the Rwanda genocode? Rwanda-Burundi, as the former Belgian colonies were known up to 1960, were held as paragons of ideal african society: they escaped the worst of colonial expolitation that ravaged and continues to ravage other places -Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia etc. The daily slaughter over a 4 month period, and with the most primitive means, surpassed the mechanical slaughter of the Nazi death camps. Almost a million people were killed in four months, surely a world record.
How did the decimated Tutsis not only stop the genocide, but overcame their persecutors despite 10-1 numerical odds, and then went on to pursue them and their supporters, and to conquer the entire Congo, 50 or 100 times the size of their original base; all without modern means of transport? This book provides some of the answers.
More than history, it provides how a decent, well trained individual was able to make an individual difference in many cases, and deeply suffered for not being able to do more. He puts the faults where they belong: the former colonials, the abysmally corrupt post-independence African regimes, the various international organizations and their peculiar agendas, the ineptitude and dogmatism of US policy that delayed recoginition of the massacres ("not a real genocide"), and of course to the participants themselves. He also makes mention of the nobility of others, individuals and organizations, fighting to make things right.
Over and over again the reader is brought up with the basic realization of how savagery is so close to the surface in all of us, and that it takes a constant, conscious effort to avoid it and stay human.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: texas history biographies

Buy New

$24.95

Buy Used

$12.82

Adding to Cart...

Added to Cart

Not Added

Item is in your Cart

Not Added

Follow the Author

Similar authors to follow

Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series) Paperback – July 29, 2005

Customers who bought this item also bought

Latest magazine issues you may like

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Customer reviews

Review this product

7 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Buy New $24.95

Buy Used $12.82

Adding to Cart...

Added to Cart

Not Added

Item is in your Cart

Not Added

Follow the Author

Similar authors to follow

Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series) Paperback – July 29, 2005

Customers who bought this item also bought

Latest magazine issues you may like

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Customer reviews

Review this product

7 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Buy New

$24.95

Buy Used

$12.82