Best central africa history books according to redditors
We found 166 Reddit comments discussing the best central africa history books. We ranked the 42 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 166 Reddit comments discussing the best central africa history books. We ranked the 42 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
This is incorrect. The UN has 95,000 uniformed peacekeeping forces all over the world. Having countries negotiate through the UN has led to a decrease (but not elimination) of conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burundi, and North/South Sudan. The UN set up tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Of course much more could have been done, but they don't do nothing.
They DID do something in Rwanda. While the whole world stood idly by, Canadian General Romeo Dallaire joined their peacekeeping force and saved thousands. Again, of course so much more could have been done, but that's not nothing.
When I was in school in Belgium in the 1960s, we were taught that the Belgians did nothing but good things in The Congo. My mother confirmed that at the time, all that most Belgians knew about what went on there was on the same level: it was all good, Belgium brought light and civilization to the natives. More recently, of course, people learned the real story: slavery, torture, mutilation, rape and downright genocide, lasting for decades.
It's true that some people in Belgium knew about this, or parts of this, but for the general public the lie was all they ever heard. I remember how shocked my mother was when she read Adam Hochshild's book, King Leoplod's Ghost a few years ago.
This is such a broad question. I want to recommend our AskHistorians Master Book List to you as it isn't focused on American history. Maybe you will find an interesting book and subject in there.
My personal recommendation would be reading up on the colonial history of Belgium, starting with King Leopold's Ghost. I couldn't put it better than the book description: In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold's Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust.
If that's not what you're looking for, maybe the history of East Germany with a focus on daily life and the Stasi could be interesting as well. But I don't have a good book recommendation for you here. The book Stasiland is very interesting, but maybe too narrow. The movie The Lives of Others could be a good starting point to get you interested.
If you wanna read about soil, I'd recommend Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Bryant Logan. If you're looking for a soil science textbook, I'd go with Brady & Weil. If you're looking for just general reading recommendations, I've really been loving King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild.
I appreciate the heads-up, and I also do want to rant for a moment, because I feel like SRS might be a sympathetic ear for this: Joseph Kony is a monster. He should be stopped. Indisputably. No doubt.
That said, the existence of the Lord's Resistance Army is deeply entangled with the economic, military and political situation in at least four nations: Uganda, the DRC, Sudan and South Sudan. This is the messiest, most violent and most complex region in the entire world. Anyone with even a passing interest in the region knows that Joseph Kony exists, and that he should be stopped. The problem is not that "Joseph Kony isn't famous." The problem is decades of poverty, violence, corruption, botched military intervention, economic exploitation, and ongoing consequences from both colonialism and the Cold War. The problem is so much deeper than just one man, but even working to remove just that one man involves taking action (for example, sending military support to the government of Uganda) which may have dangerous and unpredictable consequences. We do not have a good record of intervention in this region, although are record of non-intervention (in Rwanda, Uganda's neighbor) may be even more shameful.
That's not to say that we should do nothing, but it is to say that it makes me really, really angry when the guy in the video says, in a shocked voice, "This has been happening for months? Man, if this happened for just one night in America, it would be on the cover of Newsweek!" No. Fucking. Shit. That's what it means to live in America. That you can live in such a complete bubble that not only are you physically safe, but that you can believe so completely in your own power and safety and importance that you believe that all it takes to fix the rest of the world is for you, yourself, to care about something. Not to think, or to learn, or to act, or to sacrifice...just to care. As though there weren't an entire global system of inequity propping these bastards up at every level, and implicating us all.
A big part of this video involves the filmmaker trying to explain to his four year old son what's going on with the LRA. I get what he's doing, but that makes me mad, too. I'm not of the opinion that complex sociopolitical problems get solved by reducing them to a level that a preschooler can understand. We owe the children in the video more than that: not only to care but to know.
Africa's World War
The Lord's Resistance Army: Myth and Reality
Sudan, South Sudan and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know
Empire
Read up on your history before making assumptions
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618001905/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_aB8TBbCQ7Q6M1
It's still not worth it bud...
I'm really upset that these guys died because of this.
We also did the hearts and minds thing as seen here
And here
And here is a Buffel which was used alongside the Casspir
Casspir Patrol
The hearts and minds was never conducted by our Special Forces A.K.A Recces. We would have our "grunts" SADF troops do that after securing the area yet they would always be patrolling with armoured vehicles to avoid this exact incident that happened to these US troops...
I'm not blaming the troops by the way. This comes from a sad heart to see something like this that could have been avoided.
An MRAP or any other armoured vehicle didn't make much of a difference for us with the Hearts and minds tactics in the Border War in Angola and northern Namibia/South West Africa.
Hearts and Minds will only work if you can convince the locals that they would be better off supporting the US presence and the local government than the insurgents.
And the US needs to find out what it takes to convince the locals... obviously for us we weren't fighting religious radicals. We were fighting Communist rebels so it was easier to convince the locals in our war than I reckon it is for US forces in the Niger COIN.
We had troops that were teachers in civilian life teaching the local children, we had SADF engineers building irrigation systems and so on which helped convince and win over support in most areas in South West Africa/Namibia. Much like what I believe US and Coalition troops did in Iraq and Afghanistan?
But again it is a grave mistake forfeiting armoured vehicles for the sake of Hearts and Minds... Because using armoured vehicles isn't going to affect the Hearts and Minds mission that much and if it does there are ways to compensate/offset that negative affect without endangering your troops with unarmored vehicles... I just cannot comprehend sending troops off in vehicles that can't withstand small arms fire, it is just not right.
RIP to those brave men and I pray it never happens again under these circumstances.
If you guys want to read up more about the South African Border War check out these two books. Or you can just look online for articles and check the Wikipedia page. Or search for the South African Border War on Pinterest or any images search engine. And you'll find plenty of pictures of our guys using MRAP and armoured cars which saved a lot of lives.
SADF in the Border War 1966-1989 by Leopold Scholtz
32 Battalion by Piet Nortje
Not an article, but King Leopold's Ghost is a great book, as is The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila
Or if you have an hour to kill White King, Red Rubber, Black Death is a very well made documentary.
Yes! Thank you for bringing this up because it's absolutely influenced the way I engage my activism. Here's a photo of me running one of our first 5ks for Women for Women International with Utah For Congo. It's actually the first time I met /u/JohnDehlin in person because he came and supported the race!
I had read Half the Sky and was horrified to learn of the plight of women around the world. I'm not one to hear of something bad and sit around so I do what I do best, I organized. My friend Missy and I started 5k's to raise money for post-rape survivors in the DRC. It was a great, feel-good experience. We did it for a few years but as we both got more involved, we also got more educated.
I read King Leopold's Ghost which radically shifted my take on how I saw the world. What I saw was a history of white women who would hear about the horrors of the global south, clutch their pearls, and organize.
What this usually meant was women's societies (relief societies!) who felt like their white, western presence could save the savage from their heathen state.
If you know the history of Congo and the conflict there, they were colonized out of missionary work and the intentions of white westerners intent on rescuing them. It was horrifying to look in that mirror and realize I was complicit in a system of colonizing. A system that got them in the mess to begin with.
Colonization is violence. Mormonism too often engages in colonial ways of engaging the world and I can't support it. (However, fundamentalist are usually more intent on saving their own, including the LDS and that approach is better than trying to tell the rest of the world they need to be fixed).
Anyway, it's so hard to not be complicit in systems of violence since we are all part of these systems, but I do try my best to not reinforce them. I try and support charities where local people are working in their own corners of their own communities and let them take the lead. That is how I would vet charities. If they are outsiders trying to rescue other communities, I get suspicious.
I've tried to scale back on global activism and focus on the corners of my own world and my own community for this reason.
People are often like, "Why are you so focused on Mormonism?" Because that's the community I know and I know our struggles better than outsiders do and I'm committed and invested in making them healthier.
For people interested there is a [great book] (http://www.amazon.com/Congo-The-Epic-History-People/dp/0062200119) written by the belgian author David van Reybrouck about the history of Congo.
At the time, taxes were collected in rubber. For those not paying their taxes or paying not enough the belgians had 'collectors' which were practically death squads. They were the ones to cut off the right hand t prove that they went by the villages to collect the rubber but that the villagers did not collect enough. Hence the rubber tax is called ['red rubber'] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State_propaganda_war#.22Red_Rubber.22).
Highly recommend reading "King Leopold's Ghost" to anyone interested in the history of Belgian colonialist atrocities in Africa. Warning: it makes for grim reading.
https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1G6I5DTX3TBOH&keywords=king+leopold%27s+ghost&qid=1574558091&s=books&sprefix=king+leo%2Cstripbooks%2C143&sr=1-1
Well, no that's the Congo. They had great teachers. You remember of course, King Leopold II who cut off people's hands if they failed to meet rubber production quotas.
I'm at work right now, but I have a journal with a few brief interviews with some victims of the genocide. I'll transcribe them in the evening.
Also, watch Sometimes in April instead of Hotel Rwanda.
Excellent books on the subject: We wish to inform you that tomorrow you will be killed with your families, Machete Season (the genocidaires speak...), and Shake hands with the devil.
Also, I think it's very unlikely that PK steps down in 2017; there was talk of amending the constitution during the last round of elections.
I have a decent amount of insight, having lived there for 2 years and change, but am in no way an expert FWIW.
edit: formatting
Cough Cough
Also Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Dallaire, the leader of the UN mission in Rwanda during the genocide. It givesa fascinating perspective.
http://www.amazon.com/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0786715103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457145353&sr=8-1&keywords=romeo+dallaire
> maat jossa oikeasti tarttis tehdä jotain saa olla ihan rauhassa, esim. Somalia ja muut pimeät keski-afrikan maat.
Mark Bowdenin Black Hawk Down kertoo hieman syitä tälle.
Somalia oli pitkään kärsinyt sotapäälliköiden välisistä yhteenotoista. USA lähetti erikoisjoukot paikalle, tarkoituksena vangita näistä pahimmat. Somalit onnistuivat halvalla RPG:llä pudottamaan Black Hawkin, ja pelastussaattue lähetettiin pilotteja etsimään.
Somalit aloittivat raivokkaan vastarinnan, jossa jopa naiset ottivat aktiivisesti osaa. Jenkkien yhteydet, komentoketju ja tekniikka ei ollut vielä kunnossa, joten saattue harhaili ympäri Mogadishua valtavan tulituksen alla. Tällävälin väkijoukko raahasi pilottien ruumiita ympäri kaupunkia.
Loppujenlopuksi operaatiosta jäi käsiin kauheat määrät verta sekä tavoite parantaa kommunikaatio- ja paikannusjärjestelmiä. Mogadishulaisten mielestä jenkit olivat vain rynnineet kaupunkiin ja alkaneet teurastamaan paikallisia. Tässä vaiheessa USA totesi että kiitti riitti, somalit saavat selvittää omat kahnauksensa aivan itse.
Suosittelen lukemaan Bowdenin kirjan, Ridley Scottin elokuva ei tee sille oikeutta.
Maybe take a look at this documentary to get a little perspective on the current situation in the Congo. Canadians are among the top consumers of electronic goods, and it's the materials used to make these good that come from "blood minerals." There are also a few articles on the subject here, here and here. The west plays a large part in the violence in Western African nations. Canadians should at least realize that our lifestyles contribute (whether directly or indirectly) to some degree to political situations in third world countries.
And to say "it's shit because they made it shit" is so ignorant I don't even know where to start. Perhaps take a look through this book to realize how fucked up the Congo was from its earliest days of colonization.
https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
Adam Hochschild wrote an excellent book about it
> it coudl be argued much of africa has a better life and opportunity under colonialism
Read King Leopold’s Ghost from cover to cover before you ever make this claim again.
I don't know how obscure the conflict is, but the Congo Wars are definitely less well known than they should be. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters is a fantastic book which is engrossing and very easy to read. Available on Amazon. Africa's World War is another excellent but more academic/dry book about it. Also widely available.
King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild.
An historical account of The Congo Free State, an African country that was the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The wanton cruelty and disregard for human life shown to the African inhabitants of the area would have made Hitler blush.
Yeah, you picked a bad hill to die on, saying I " generically blame "Europeans" " when I clearly pointed out that there were Europeans calling out chattel slavery as evil as it was happening. You really should have caught that before responding.
Somewhat realated, another podcast you can check out is Behind the Bastards, which did a two part episode on Belgium's crimes in the Congo. https://www.behindthebastards.com/podcasts/part-one-king-leopold-ii-the-first-modern-bastard.htm
Did you know Leopold raised capital for his African venture by claiming he was doing humanitarian work fighting the Arabs who were enslaving Africans? And that he then used those funds to create his own slave armies and workforce to extract rubber wealth from the region? I didn't, until I took the time to listen and learn. And that's why I called you out on trying to shift blame to India and it's slave trade, bc that's an old racist tactic to muddy the waters and derail a conversation on slavery.
maybe add King Leopold's Ghost to that list: https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905/ref=sr_1_1?crid=V66OOWR7ZQFJ&keywords=king+leopold%27s+ghost&qid=1573326603&sprefix=king+leo%2Caps%2C179&sr=8-1
edit: also, don't start an apology with feigned innocence on this subject, especially on r/blackfellas. Just own that you response was bad, and trust that we can see the effort to change course.
Thanks man, appreciate that.
Ja I have read several books on the war, I'll list them all so you can maybe pick one up one day.
The South African Border War 1966-1989 by Leopold Scholtz - I highly recommend this book. This is the book that really got me to understand the overall picture of the war although reading the other books and online material as well as speaking to relatives that fought in the war helped fill in the gaps for me.
32 Battalion by Piet Nortje - This book is also excellent. Goes into a lot of detail about personal accounts and experiences of members of 32 Battalion. They were tough buggers, 32Bn was made up of many Angolan nationals that were once part of the FNLA but were cut off and abandoned by their leader Holden Roberto so Jan Breytenbach trained them and thus 32 Battalion was born. Sad what happened to these poor guys after the war... The ANC just prior to coming to power demanded they be disbanded 1993. There is footage of their last parade and disbandment on Youtube. They were real battle hardened soldiers... They deserved better.
Zulu Zulu Foxtrot by Arn Durand - This is a book about his experience in the police COIN unit called Koevoet. These okes were hard as nails driving Casspirs over the enemy insurgents and tied them to their vehicles after killing them. Brutal... There is no such thing as a gentleman's war. No side played fair. SWAPO conducted many atrocities and Koevoet did the same. So it is futile for either side to claim evil yet SWAPO often complained to the UN about Koevoet and when South Africa complained to the UN about SWAPO atrocities which fell on deaf ears. The political bias was clearly evident and is revealed and mentioned many times in every book I've listed here.
Teenage Safari by Evan Davies the memoirs of a 61 Mech mortar man. 61 Mech was South Africa's iron fist our primary mechanized unit. They were the ones that smashed the Angolan and Cubans on the ground time and time again. They were primarily used for conventional battles although they did see some action against SWAPO as well which was almost exclusively COIN/guerrilla warfare.
LZ HOT! by Nick Lithgow - Memoirs of a South African Air Force helicopter pilot. He flew SAAF Alouette III gunships as well as Puma and Atlas Oryx transport helicopters. He also did a stint on the border as part of the infantry prior to receiving pilot training IIRC.
Eye of the Firestorm by Roland de Vries - This is a long one... The memoirs of a Commander of 61 Mech. There is a lot more to say about this book but my comment is getting quite long! It's very detailed and goes into the whole history of 61 Mech and the overall war itself. Though is quite complicated to read at times due to the complex nature of the war and all the operations, units involved and so on.
Recce by Koos Stadler - A book about the Recces (South African Special Forces) and Koos Stadler a very renowned Recce. The accomplishments and actions of the Recces are something else entirely... Ranging from sitting right inside enemy camps to gather intel for weeks if not months on end. To directing artillery and airstrikes strikes over enemy positions deep inside Angola, cutting off supply lines to destroying the SWAPO headquarters, shooting down Russian transport aircraft such as Antonov AN-12's with Soviet officers on board. There are many insane stories about the Recces a truly hard bunch as well as a small unit being only a few hundred members strong IIRC.
Mobility Conquers: The Story of 61 Mechanised Battalion Group 1978-2005 by Willem Steenkamp (Author), Helmoed-Römer Heitman (Author) - Haven't read this one either also very expensive! But apparently a very in depth book about South African mobile warfare doctrine during the Border War.
Mobile Warfare for Africa by Roland de Vries - Haven't read this either but should be a good one since Roland de Vries is one of the founding fathers of South African mobile warfare doctrine and tactics during the Border War.
His book is solid, on the subject of horrific violence in Africa, Machete Season is superb but is very very very dark.
The book King Leopold's Ghost is all about this genocide. It's a very good read and I highly recommend it.
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild is really good. Its about the Belgian King's rule over the Congo.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevich is an account of the Rwandan Genocide of '94.
That's more recent history, but the fact is little is written about pre-colonial Africa (not dealing with Egypt). I haven't read much, but I'm sure theres some decent readings about the Mali Empire (maybe start with Mansa Musa?).
Like Rwanda, where nearly a million people were killed in about a month. With machetes. Many of the early deaths when the killings started were done in churches. Since that's where people initially gathered looking for safety, that's where the genocidiers went to kill. Shake Hands with the Devil is a pretty tough but good read.
If anybody's down for some really interesting reading, Black Hawk Down tells the whole story that they couldn't fit into the movie.
The author, Mark Bowden, has lots of other great reads too!
For anyone wanting to read the whole story https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
It's not often you get to say "Fuck Belgium"
There wasn)'t one single book that just outpaced all the others I read this year. The best of the lot are...
I'm almost positive it's in the book by Mark Bowden
Amazon link
I highly recommend it, the story jumps around perspectives from solders on both sides as well as civilians. It's a great representation of modern combat.
There is a good book about the Congo and King Leopold, called King Leopold's Ghost.
https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
Naked Economics - conforme /u/jpjandrade recomendou (a Economia Nua e Crua em PT-BR) é sensacional, o tipo de livro que dá vontade de comprar 10 para dar de presente.
Outro um pouco mais avançado é Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, o qual creio não ter edição em PTBR ainda.
De história vai depender muito do seu gosto... os de economia são simples de escolher pois o básico da economia é o seu próprio núcleo... história é muito ampla...
Eu adoro história e devo ter uns 50 livros, sendo uns 20 sobre episódios específicos da Segunda Guerra. Recomendo os seguintes livros como sendo bons mesmo pra quem nunca leu nada a respeito (creio que todos os abaixos existam em PTBR, caso não leia em Inglês):
The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land;
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War - Se gostou do filme, o livro é sensacional - totalmente baseado nos relatos das unidades presentes em combate;
Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 - este livro é sensacional, se já ouviu alguma vez sobre a batalha de Stalingrado a leitura é obrigatória;
Por fim, caso goste de ciência (física e química especificamente) e de história militar, este foi o livro que mostrou pra mim que a ciência caminha de forma fantástica, e que muitas (se não todas) as explicações de descobertas são superhypermega simplificadas: The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
If anyone wants to learn more about this topic, there is a book called King Leopold's Ghost. It has a very well-researched and heartbreaking view on the crimes committed.
http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
Check out King Leopold's Ghost for a really interesting non-fiction book about Leopold in the the Belgian Congo and the men who brought the genocide to light- it's an incredibly engaging read.
King Leopold II to be specific.
And he devastated the Congo. This is a book everyone should read.
Also, this book is an essential read on "ordinary men" in a Nazi reserve batallion and how they coped with (or outright enjoyed) the tasks entrusted to them. Some ran away, some drank themselves to oblivion, severe depression, etc.
I have to thread lightly here, because i'm not an expert, but i'll try to answer:
First of all, you have to see him in his own context and try not to judge by current (modern) standards. Every Western country was taking part in the Scramble for Africa, and it's not that hard to imagine that none of the participants had the wellbeing of the native population as their prime concern.
Secondly: Yes, there was wide spread abuse, atrocities, killings,... Yes, as the founder and sole owner of Congo Free State, he is/was without any doubt partly responsible. Yes, economic gain was the first goal, human rights were often not even considered. BUT: was it genocide... (and here is the controversial bit): in my humble opinion: no. Was it mismanagment and grave negligence and whatever: perhaps. But as always with history, it isn't simply a black and white story, there is always lots of nuance.
Like i said: i'm no specialist. A very interesting read about Congo (and the role, both good and bad, Leopold played) is this book.
I just finished King Leopold's Ghost, which was one of the most eye-opening historical books I've read. Though not about the Americas, it goes into great depth by which the European colonists committed savage atrocities against relatively peaceful indigenous populations to enslave them to produce goods and services to fuel their war machines. In this case it was rubber in the Congo.
All of this sets the stage for our current global geopolitics. It often seems like the narrative hasn't changed much, it's only pushed out of the mainstream foci, conveniently. Apparently, we're condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past due to, as you implied, revisionist histories that are spoon-fed to the young.
It's not an uncommon style, and one I'm fond of.
If you liked that, you'll also like Ship of Gold in a Deep Blue Sea, The Perfect Storm and Blackhawk Down. The books, not the movies.
If you want to learn about our colonial history in the Congo you should read "King Leopold's Ghost" by Adam Hochschild.
Amazon Link.
You're right about people ignoring Africa. The deadliest conflict of the 21st century, and I bet not many people could even name the belligerents in the Second Congo War, which still isn't entirely resolved. And I hate to be a pessimist, but border disputes are likely to get even more heated if China really does manage to set off another "Scramble for Africa."
Gérard Prunier's book Africa's World War is a fair look at the war and its origins.
If you want to learn more King Leopold's Ghost is a good book that will keep you hooked on the subject.
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
> increased troop presence in somalia destabilizing the country while ignoring genocide in rwanda
For anyone interested in the Rwandan Genocide, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by a Canadian General in charge of peacekeeping in Rwanda is a MUST read. It really lays out the frustration they were feeling trying to get the UN and its super powers more involved. The US sat by mainly because of how badly we got beat up in Somalia and that the US public was dead set against losing soldiers to conflicts that didn't directly affect them :/
Ive heard it called Africa's 30 Year War more than a few times due to its frightening scale, variety of factions and massive piles of corpses generated. I honestly cant remember it getting any serious coverage in the west though, just the occasional blip on the news that made it seem like a bush war flare up.
Ive been intending to read this book about it for a while now since I do feel like I should learn more, but on the flip side Im kind of hesitant since it just seems like such a misserable and depressing topic.
I'm currently working through King Leopold's Ghost. It's interesting and well-written, but it is pretty darn dense. I haven't read Stuffed and Starved except in excerpts in a class but it's on my list to bring during service. Guns, Germs, and Steel is also on my list. Very popular and while there is some controversy around it I think it could prove to at least be a very entertaining read.
Have you read this book? It's really good
It sounds like you're trying to justify Imperialism by the actions of modern Zimbabwe.
If you want an example of European Imperialism being harmful in Africa, look no further than King Leopold II of Belgium's rule over the Congo where over 10 million people were killed while he extracted ivory and rubber from the country. This was not "self-inflicted". Source
The original point was the difference between Chinese power and European power in Africa. You brought up the failures of Zimbabwe's self rule. Nobody else was talking about self rule, we were comparing Europe to China. Since European involvement in the Congo resulted in upwards of ten million deaths over a period of twenty years, I'm going to go ahead and say that European control of Africa was not good.
>The Western method of obtaining natural resources from the colonies in Africa was a cancerous mentality, and just because the skin color changed, the method has largely remained the same
EXACTLY. Nothing has changed for the better. No poor innocent African children were "saved from whitey's oppression" they just got a new mid-level manager who claims to be a Christian but is actually a fucking cannibal who is much more ruthless than anyone since the Belgian Congo.
>It was unsustainable, and as many commodities have decreased in value over the past decade, Whites in power would be having similar troubles.
Agreed, but I still think that the manner of decolonization was a mistake, as was letting white people drift in the wind because being white is no longer cool among Western college liberals.
>You're stormfronting the hell out of your history and it's clouded your ability to look at things objectively.
Nah, no stormfagging, I'm actually really into African history and read on the subject extensively.
I highly recommend this book: Dancing in the Glory of Monsters It really helped shape my understanding of African politics and political violence.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda and Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.
Also Survival in the Killing Fields
My choice would be King Leopold's Ghost. I would want them to read a book that is somewhat less academic because I would want as many people as possible reading it to understand it. I also deal with many people who do not understand the costs of colonialism and the deep scarring impact of colonialism. I remember reading this book a while after reading some of the pro-colonialism work by Niall Ferguson and wanting to force him to read this book and justify his views on benevolent colonialism.
If she'd like to read about a largely under-studied war, check out Africa's World War, about the outbreak of a very big, messy and complicated conflict in Central Africa following the Rwandan genocide. A great read for beginners and enthusiasts alike.
A really good book on the subject of the time was King Leopold's Ghost
Shake hands with the devil A very detailed account of the Rwandan genocide and the problems the head of the UN mission faced to get the world to try and care about what went on.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda
Stories from the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda. Gives another side of the story to compare and contrast against Gen Dallaire's account.
Auschwitz : The Nazis & The 'Final Solution'
The title says it all...
Here's some suggested reading you ignorant shithead.
Or if you'd rather a quick source, here. It's even got this picture.
>Nsala, of the district of Wala, looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year old daughter, Boali, who was killed and allegedly cannibalized by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (A.B.I.R.) militia. Source: E. D Morel, King Leopold's rule in Africa, between pages 144 and 145
You'd probably love Blood River by Tim Butcher. He talks about the history of the Congo and how ravaged the modern Congo is by all the different events that've happened to it. It's a very good book and shows how the Congo is still very over-exploited and dangerous to live in
> It's a poisonous mentality with zero long-term planning, equivalent to Rwandan tribalism
The RPF ruthless plan to get and hold power (and then pillage the Congo) was long-term, and it worked out and still works perfectly.
https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Blood-Crimes-Rwandan-Patriotic/dp/0345812093
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Lakes-Holocaust-1996-1997-Africa/dp/1909384658
https://www.amazon.com/Africas-World-War-Continental-Catastrophe/dp/0199754209
https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Glory-Monsters-Collapse-Africa/dp/1610391071
http://www.amazon.com/Congo-History-David-Van-Reybrouck/dp/0062200127
You can start there
> "King Leopold's Ghosts
Do you mean King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild? I have that one, it's great.
Most of the people there were still in the Iron Age. This is a amazing book on the subject, filled with first-hand accounts. The writer made it his life's work, going to villages all over Congo to gather first-hand accounts of what happened, and how the Congolese perceived it all.
You night be interested in this book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004KZOWEG/
I'm not really joking though.
https://www.amazon.com/Machete-Season-Killers-Rwanda-Speak/dp/0312425031
We actually had to read about it in my undergrad core class. Very dense, very disturbing read.
http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
edit: failed hyperlink...
Africa has a rich history and experience with Marxism, especially the Maoist inspired anti-colornial revolutions. It is interesting to see the neo-liberal ideological turn of many parties such as the South African Communist Party.
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Marxist analysis of how Europe underdeveloped and exploited Africa
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters - This book covers the Second Congo War which was the deadliest conflict since World War 2. It occurred between 1998 and 2003 and shockingly few people are even aware it happened at all. Definitely worth reading up on.
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa is a phenomenal book about postcolonial central Africa, the Rwandan genocide, and the two Congo wars. If you've ever wondered what drives conflicts in the world this book is a great place to learn.
The next one on my tap is: Ghost Wars: the CIAs Secret History in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to 9/11
https://www.amazon.com/Africas-World-War-Continental-Catastrophe/dp/0199754209
I'm reading this book right now and it's all about the background behind the current crisis in the Congo. Hope this helps!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0618001905
This refers to rule under Leopold well before the time this picture was taken, but it's a great read.
Dear Europe, you are importing these people into your countries. They do not play by the same rules as you - they don't play by any rules.
Correct
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War https://www.amazon.com/dp/080214473X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_okomDbPWGERE3
King Leopolds Ghost 3 books in one: rivetting Indiana Jones about the Stanley-Watson expedition, history politicial, how Belgium got this enourmous colony, and a detective story on how the world discovered Leo's atrocities (a lowly clerk in an Antwerp shipping company wants to know why full ships come in and empty ships go back)
https://www.amazon.com/Fly-Cathedral-Cambridge-Scientists-International/dp/0374157162/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=fly+in+the+cathedral&qid=1566474821&s=books&sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.com/D-Day-June-1944-Climactic-Battle/dp/B00A2ATJ1Y/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=d-day+ambrose&qid=1566474874&s=books&sr=1-1 or anything by Stephen E Ambrose (also great is his history of the first railway through the US, or the Lewis expedition.
>Wtf? Ya pas de différence entre le Congo sous les Belges et le Québec (autrefois canada-français) sous l'Angleterre.
Oui, c'était exactement la même chose. Et c'est moi qui faut apprends mon histoire...tu peux commencer ici http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
>Parler français...Être indépendantiste...
La Charte n'a rien de faire avec parler Français ou l'indépendantiste. Si tu es un Anglophone fédéraliste qui soutien la Charte je dirai la même chose.
First, I would recommend two books by Bernard B Fall, a French war correspondent and historian. They are peerless historical accountings of the First Indochina War, and are essential to understanding the American debacle in Vietnam. His analysis of the failings of the French were a direct warning to the US, which were largely ignored, resulting in a predictable failure. He died in 1967 while embedded with US Marines in Vietnam after stepping on a mine.
I also recommend a book by Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian general.
Some schools of thought use majority and minority in the terms of power, as opposed to population. So the Belgium's colonizing the Congo for rubber would be the majority because they hold the power. A group with a lot of power can then systematically discriminate against a certain race because they believed that they are superior.
http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
King Leopold's Ghost-Adam Hochschild
I just got a Kindle a few weeks ago and it was my first purchase :)
I read "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad in high school and loved it and this book gives a lot of historical context to the formation of the Congo Free State and the atrocities that happened there. Really really interesting read.
Also any 'classics' they have for free which is really nice (stuff like Alice in Wonderland, Faust, Pride and Prejudice, etc, etc).
> I'll be quite honest, after being reminded of your SABW post, I was hoping this'd draw your attention, so I am greatly chuffed to see you drop by!
Luckily I was tagged in it as there is so much posted daily that these often get overlooked, but happy to help! Thanks for the great question!
​
>Must see about getting my hands on those books; South Africa-related media is rather thin on the ground, and this particular theatre that isn't Asia is fascinating to me.
There are many more books now than there used to be, documentaries too. They're still few and far between but it's picking up luckily. I also recommend these two documentaries if you want to know more: Bush War (the DVD's are no longer available, so this is the best place to watch it), and Angola: The War. I also recommend Leopold Scholtz's The South African Defence Forces in the Border War 1966-1989 if you want something far more technical and academic. And, of course, I made a documentary myself many years ago for my MSc thesis which has some very interesting material as well.
​
>It's funny - Pessimal makes mention of National Service affecting the not!South Africans in his works, but this is the first time it's sunk in to me that it'd mean a fresh crop of eighteen-year-old troepies every year. The spread of attitudes sounds like the usual spectrum you'd encounter in a civilian context - the non-racists, the ones who were merely ignorant, and the dyed-in-the-wool types. 18 and plunged into a whole new world, oh my.
People tend to forget most soldiers are really young, especially conscripted soldiers, and this will of course play into how they react in war. They're just kids really! And yes, the socio-military complex is just a microcosm of regular society, albeit more structured and goal-orientated towards inflicting harm. This is why I'm trying to analyse the social aspect of military endeavours more, to show that the two worlds aren't as dissimilar as people think.
​
>Much to be read and more to learn! I've no idea why I find this particular stretch of South African history so fascinating (and I really must remind myself of the spectre of apartheid behind that; as an Asian, it seems like I treat race or ethnicity much more lightly than others do), but I'm certainly not wasting that fascination.
For me, it's fascinating because it's such a massive piece of contemporary African history, Cold War history, AND features some of the biggest battles since WWII and yet it's so unknown. Not to mention all the socio-political aspects. I want to make it's understanding more mainstream so thanks for your interest! I think the search for the "lesser known" conflicts is a good fascination to have as they all play a role in determining our current global society!
​
>And if you're a Discworld fan, I highly recommend Pessimal! Mirror up to South Africa aside, his work is generally excellent, very much in keeping with Terry Pratchett's own work.
I'm a huge Discworld fan, so I'll definitely look into this. Thanks!
After finishing Heart of Darkness, I immediately picked up a copy of King Leopold's Ghost, a history of Belgian colonialism in the Congo. Really puts things in perspective.
King Leopold's Ghost is a great read on the subject.
I hope it is informative.
Another book to consider is Pruniere's Africa's World War.
King Leopold's Ghost is an engrossing read that would be a great companion book to Heart of Darkness, which I saw you're reading now. Even if you weren't reading HoD, King Leopold's Ghost is a book I would still be recommending.
If you're interested check out King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hothschild. It's really a great book and isn't up its own ass. I read a few chapters for a class and ended up reading the whole thing. Very interesting in a non-nerdy way.
http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
A work I recently finished that you might find interesting was King Leopold's Ghost. It was a rigorous study and explanation of Belgian colonialism in the Congo under King Leopold in the 19th and 20th centuries; I found the book gave a very vivid summary of that, and filled in a bit of a blind spot of mine to the exact horror European colonialism could reach to. I was familiar with colonialism in the general, but I think it furthered my understanding to see such a detailed work on just one example of colonialism in history.
A couple books ago, I also read The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution which, although a work of historical analysis primarily, still informed me in the process of elaborating its historical analysis of quite a bit of history to which I was hitherto unaware. I've heard its arguments come across even better if you're acquainted with Francis Fukuyama's other political philosophy work (famously, The End of History and the Last Man), but I had not read that and its arguments still came across well. It was fairly wide-spanning in history like the title says, but as a fairly long work it was still able to go into detail. The book shined the most for me when it was exploring state building in India and China, while relating and contrasting these processes to the mechanics of European state building, something I was more familiar about. He describes the story of state building in all these areas, starting from the very beginning, and attempts to answer why it went certain directions in some places but differed in others. He makes the very convincing argument that religion was an essential factor, relating it to the rule of law and informing me in the process a lot of the details of how religion operated in India and China historically. I'm not really qualified to accurately evaluate the book's core theses, but disregarding them, the journey to those theses was still very enlightening.
Also, I think I've seen you mention elsewhere on this subreddit your interest in phenomenology and philosophy at large. I was wondering how you would recommend approaching the canon to say, have a good understanding of someone like Heidegger. It feels a bit overwhelming to look at the sheer complexity of later philosophy like that and confront it. Do you think it would be best to try to start at the beginning of Western philosophy and move up from there, work by work? I have a basic knowledge of some philosophy, mostly gained at random from secondary resources and occasional primary sources I found really interesting, but it's all very scattershot and not super rigorous. I'm currently reading through a history of Western philosophy which I hope will give me a broader perspective, and some more insight into how all the ideas relate and developed. Anyway, I was just hoping you might have some thoughts or advice on this, thanks.
The last time I saw this image someone commented and recommended the book King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Someone gave it to me as a gift recently and it's on my stack, but I haven't gotten to it quite yet. I think I'll move it to the top. Before I saw this image last time I had no idea these things had happened.
There's a couple of reasons for this.
First, I mostly get dates from what I read. You may notice that since I posted it, the most recent changes I've made are about modern Africa. That's because I'm reading this at the moment: https://www.amazon.com/Africas-World-War-Continental-Catastrophe/dp/0199754209 Obviously, time limits me somewhat in how much I can read.
Secondly, I do fill in gaps through Wikipedia some times. As you can probably tell, my main interests lie in classical and medieval times, so I'm far more likely to focus on those gaps.
​
Technically, this is the flag of the front International African Association (1876) and The International Association of the Congo (1879–1885) before it was ever the flag of a nation.
If anyone wants to read an extremely interesting history of the Belgium's (really, Leopold II's) relationship with Africa (awful as it may be) I highly recommend King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.
It mentions the history of this flag, and discusses the organizations who used it along with harrowing tales of incredible cruelty and greed.
Pick up a copy of King Leopolds Ghost or The Kaiser's Holocaust. Both very readable although not much fun.
joseph Conrad arrived in the Congo in period before it got really bad. It inspired him to write "Heart of Darkness" which is good read. and this:
http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208965024&sr=1-1
is King Leopold's Ghost which is a history of the whole awful mess. And also a good read. Its not all bad. There are some heros. The catholic church is not one of them. Niether are any "western" governments. They behave dispicably. Mark Twain spoke out against it as did many afro americans. But its mostly pretty wretched. And not many people know about it.
Howard French's A Continent for the Taking retells the story of the Rwanda genocide and covers its effect on the present-day war in the Congo.
I'm a 19-year-old boy from Ottawa, Canada (you may have heard of our little country :P ). While I was not homeschooled per se during my public school years (I went to regular English schools), I definitely learned more quickly, more thoroughly and more widely due to my parents' constant efforts to teach me things that went way above and beyond what I was "learning" at my high school.
My parents are both high school teachers, and have each spent roughly 30 years teaching their respective subjects.
My dad actually just retired last year, but he taught most of the Social Studies curriculum during the course of his career (History, Philosophy, Psychology, World Religions, etc.). He is a bilingual Francophone from Ottawa, so he taught at one of the French Catholic high schools in our area. He also happens to be somewhat skeptical of religion (not an atheist, but damned close). Odd combination, yes, but it has resulted in him introducing me to
military history, everything from the Roman legions to the Knights Templar to the Taliban.
My mother was born in Ottawa, to Greek parents who had left Greece after the Second World War; my grandparents are from a village about 20 minutes away from the modern city of Sparti (Sparta). During the war, the village was at some point occupied by Axis forces (I'm not sure when or to what extent, because my grandparents' English is not great and only my mother speaks Greek).
I decided to include a list (below) of works that I've found particularly interesting (I've never actually written down a list of my favs before, so this may be somewhat... sprawling and will be in no particular order :P ). Depending on the ages of your kids, some of this stuff might be inappropriate for them right now, but they can always check it out when they're older. It's mostly military/wartime history that interests me (it's what I plan on studying in university), but I've learned so many little tidbits about other things as well from having access to these works. Since your kids are all boys, I hope they'll find at least some of this stuff to be interesting :) .
Books
Movies and TV
This is all non-fiction. If you like this list, let me know, and I can expand on it further, and also include my favourite works from other genres, as well as my favourite fiction books as well :) . I left out tons of stuff that I'm too much of a lazy teenager to type in here, lol.
Blood River by Tim Butcher It's an account of the authors attempt to navigate down the Congo River in the modern day DRC.
Harrowing, to say the least.
EDIT: Or check out The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
It's been kinda beat to death, but still a good read. Set in the Belgian Congo around the time of independence and the assassination of Lumumba.
Howard French's A Continent for the Taking, an incredible journal of modern day Africa.
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden which was turned into an okay film
> wonder what the UN achieved there.
They saved the lives of thousands or even tens of thousands of people while the rest of the world sat back and did nothing.
A little recommended reading on the subject: Shake Hands with the Devil
Huh, never heard of that before. Seems to have happened years before the genocide and whether that influenced anything is debatable, after all the genocide was committed mostly with the help of machetes.
Annan on the other hand was head of peacemaking during the genocide and according to the UN forces commander it was him who ordered the peacekeepers not to intervene multiple times.
All good--for context in terms of my favorite non-fiction reads, this one is pretty high on the list, and it's not exactly riveting reading.
The War of the World - Niall Ferguson. An overview of world events from WWI to the end of the Cold War.
Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad - Gordon Thomas. A really intriguing look at the history of the Israeli spy agency from birth to present day. It'll make you cringe, gasp, pissed off, laugh, get excited and say "Bad Ass!" throughout.
NSDQ
Again, lets compare reading lists and see who retained more. Here are the last 3 I read, how about you?
http://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Energy-Rock-Shaped-World/dp/0670020648
http://www.amazon.com/Candy-Machine-Cocaine-Took-World/dp/0141034467
http://www.amazon.com/Continent-Taking-Tragedy-Hope-Africa/dp/0375414614
Almost forgot the very last one I read, it even mentioned Reddit and subreddits!
http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Win-4chan-Army-Conquered/dp/1590207106/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321971038&sr=1-1
Good Resources is King Leopold's Ghost. http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
To get more into it. It was the Age of Colonization and the Carving up of Africa. As the major powers took chunks for the nation for themselves King Leopold decided he wanted a part of the action.
He paid explorers to chart of the Congo River and claimed a large swath of land along it. He was competing with France to his North, and Germans to the East.
It is important to note that the Congo Free State started not as a Belguian colony but as King Leopold's personal colony. He exploited the lands for Ivory and later Rubber by essential enslaving the natives in their own homeland. Those that didn't make quotas had their hands cut off. The population in the Congo crashed, and it is general considered the 4th worst destruction of human life after the Holocaust, Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's Communist China
The book Heart of Darkness is written about what Joseph Conrad saw when he visited.
Eventually as people learned of the atrocities King Leopold was forced to turn it over to the Belgium nation. When they took over Missionary school and other more "civilized" systems were set up, but the exploitation continued in a slightly less extreme way.
This book is an excellent resource for those wishing to learn more about Belgian tyranny and genocide in Congo.
For Belgium and the Congo both, I would instead recommend King Leopold's Ghost.
The book "explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the large-scale atrocities committed during that period. The book succeeded in increasing public awareness of these Belgian colonial crimes." (Wikipedia)
I don't think that's the book their ambassador would want us to read, though.
Really glad to hear it. Her larger (but generally similar) work, The Trouble with the Congo, is widely available as an e-book. I was able to borrow it as such from my local public library.
You probably already know, but some great relatively academic DRC resources are:
It’s obviously not about DRC proper, but Re-Imagining Rwanda, by J. Pottier, really helped me cut through a lot of the misleading rhetoric about the Rwandese side of things and understand just how much this is an information war. It gets pretty controversial and I wouldn’t believe everything it implies.
Shake Hands with the Devil is on the list, so I'll throw that in here.
These are the books we read in my Africa in Popular Media and African History classes in college. I highly recommend all of them:
They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky
God Grew Tired of Us
A Long Way Gone
A Continent for the Taking
Black Hawk Down
Country of My Skull
Kaffir Boy
Machete Season: the Killers in Rwanda Speak
The Graves Are Not Yet Full
An Ordinary Man
I've heard House of Leaves is really bizarre and cool.
My current deck is Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, Between Legitimacy and Violence: A History of Colombia, 1875-2002, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Blood Meridian, and One Hundred Years of Solitude.
It's a really depressing list.
I read American Gods a couple years ago and hated it enough to not pick up another fiction book for like over a year.
I just realized I haven't read a non-fiction book other than a textbook in years. Not a huge fan of sermons, so I would probably never want to read that last one. The older history books are neat though. They are closer to old events, but they also have their own skewed view, so yeah, "abandoned window to the past" is a good take on them.
That does seem like something original Starlight Glimmer would go for.
For an interesting non-fiction book, I have a HEAVILY annotated copy of King Leopold's Ghost with me, though I haven't opened it in a while. It goes a bit into colonial Africa as a whole, but mostly focus on the Belgian Congo around the turn of the century. The author does a good job turning it into a story, but its all true (at least as far as I can tell), which is more horrifying.
Are you suggesting that India and Pakistan, before partition, weren't subjected to 200 years of British colonial rule? That the arbitrary colonial borders drawn up by the British didn't involuntarily mash together a part of the world that was largely Muslim with a part of the world that was primarily Hindu? That atrocities and human rights abuses did not occur on a regular basis, including intentional famines? Have you done any historical reading about the actions of the East India Company in SE Asia? Do you have any thoughts on why many in the Middle East have a deep-seated, generational resentment of the Imperial behavior of the West?
Perhaps it has something to do with the firebombings and mustard gas?
>But most of the unpeaceful ones are Muslim.
This sweeping generalization is laughably ignorant. But engaging you further will not be useful, as your worldview is grounded in faith instead of historical research. If you don't think the atrocities committed by Western imperial powers didn't permanently fuck-up and fuck-over India, Africa and the Middle East, I can't help you.
Your use of the world "unpeaceful" suggests to me that you don't have a college degree. This is not to put you down, it's just to say that engaging you further will be pointless since you already have your mind made up about the "bad guys."
I can make a book recommendation though, if you have the stomach and the balls to read the historical events that inspired Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
Nah man i read 3 books about it, from different authors. Stop being a little r/imnotlikeothergirls by trying to look cool for dismissing the norm. Your source is a extremely biased website made for people desperate to be part of some backwards movement.
Edit: read a book
I know a decent amount this is probably the best book on the conflict https://www.amazon.ca/Africas-World-War-Continental-Catastrophe/dp/0199754209
One of the best works is Alencastro's The Trade in the Living
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Congo-History-David-Van-Reybrouck/dp/0062200119/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375373811&sr=1-5
>Journalism demands briefness and articles have rigid schemes to follow, so creativity wasn't always welcome.
Fuck them.
Black Hawk Down, by Mark Bowden.
Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, by Hunter Thompson.
Roughing It, by Mark Twain.
These are four books--all creative, funny, dramatic, informative and beautifully written--by reporters.
Read them and study them. Copy the techniques they use, how they craft sentences, how they lead into the stories they tell, how they turn interviews into characters narrating their events.
And then practice. Over and over and over.
That's just not true. Losers write a lot of history:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D9&field-keywords=Vietnam+War
...and:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Hawk-Down-Story-Modern/dp/080214473X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373240741&sr=1-1&keywords=Blackhawk+Down
...and:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Bay+of+Pigs
...and:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Little+Bighorn&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3ALittle+Bighorn
...and
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Third-Reich-Albert-Speer/dp/0684829495/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373240790&sr=1-3&keywords=Albert+Speer
This chap was on the losing side in two world wars:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_8?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=mein+kampf+by+adolf+hitler&sprefix=Mein+Kam%2Cstripbooks%2C142&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Amein+kampf+by+adolf+hitler
Then again, losers of battles and wars have good reason to think about what they did wrong and write about it.
Also you need to understand that victory and defeat are not always decisive and clear-cut. Victors like the Sioux, Vietnamese, and Somalis, were not in a position to dictate terms and do whatever they wanted with the vanquished.
Library in the other end of the room. And it is three:
http://www.amazon.com/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0786715103
http://www.amazon.com/Clash-Civilizations-Remaking-World-Order/dp/1451628978/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375278381&sr=1-1&keywords=clash+samuel
http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Ding-Village-Yan-Lianke/dp/B005FOG3X4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375278398&sr=1-1&keywords=ding+village