Full name: In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo

Author: Michela Wrong Year: 2000 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, Politics, Travel, Biographies Culture: Africa Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads Amazon LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780060934439 0060188804 0060934433

He was known as "the Leopard," and for the thirty-two years of his reign Mobutu Sese Seko, president of Zaire, showed all the cunning of his namesake, seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's copper and diamond resources, downing pink champagne in his jungle palace like some modern-day reincarnation of Joseph Conrad's crazed station manager. Michela Wrong, a correspondent who witnessed firsthand Mobutu's last days, traces the rise and fall of the idealistic young journalist who became the stereotype of an African despot. Engrossing, highly readable, and as funny as it is tragic, her book assesses how Belgium's King Leopold, the CIA, and the World Bank all helped to bring about the disaster that is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. If, in this poignant account, the villains are the "Big Vegetables" (les Grosses legumes) -- the fat cats who benefited from Mobutu's largesse -- the heroes are the ordinary citizens trapped in a parody of a state. Living in the shadow of a disintegrating nuclear reactor, where banknotes are not worth the paper they are printed on, they have turned survival into an art form. For all its valuable insights into Africa's colonial heritage and the damage done by Western intervention, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz is ultimately a celebration of the irrepressible human spirit. Similar books: The Africans by David Lamb Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Jason Stearns The Assassination of Lumumba by Ludo De Witte A Continent for the Taking by Howard W. French Africa by Richard Dowden It's Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong The Shackled Continent by Robert Guest Blood River by Tim Butcher The Last Expedition by Daniel Liebowitz Africa's World War by Gerard Prunier Congo by David Van Reybrouck The Fortunes of Africa by Martin Meredith Africa by John Reader The Graves Are Not Yet Full by Bill Berkeley The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith Precolonial Black Africa by Cheikh Anta Diop I Didn't Do It for You by Michela Wrong Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick The River of Lost Footsteps by Thant Myint-U King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild