Death of Dignity: Angola's Civil War, by Victoria Brittain (Pluto Press, London; 1998; 108 pages). In this succinct and impassioned account of one of Africa's longest wars, Ms. Victoria Brittain helps bring to light the political intricacies of Angola's prolonged tragedy, one little known or well-understood in the outside world. She brings to the task her skills as a seasoned journalist -- she is Deputy Foreign Editor of the London Guardian -- as well as a rare first-hand knowledge acquired during more than a decade of visits to Angola. From the country's anti-colonial struggle, through independence from Portugal in 1975, to the present, Angola has been afflicted by virtually constant warfare. The fighting has killed many tens of thousands (most of them civilians), driven millions of villagers from their homes and destroyed much of the infrastructure and economy. Ms. Brittain, whose sympathies with the struggles and travails of ordinary people are explicit throughout her book, describes this downward spiral with much anger and indignation. Beyond noting the staggering statistics of carnage, she most effectively presents the graphic stories of individual Angolans whose lives have been shattered. Ms. Brittain does not feign neutrality. Although sometimes quite critical of what she sees as the compromises, blunders and growing corruption among the Angolan authorities, she regards the government in Luanda as the most legitimate representative of the Angolan people's aspirations for sovereignty and social progress. In contrast, the UNITA rebel movement, once directly supported by apartheid South Africa (which repeatedly invaded Angola), Zaire, and the US, pursues "primitive fascism," she argues. Despite repeated peace agreements, the group remains reluctant to lay down its arms and pursue democratic alternatives. In discussing the complex mediation efforts of the big powers and the UN, she pulls no punches in criticizing what she regards as the ignorance, shortsightedness and even self-interest of many of these international agencies. Amid Angola's incredibly daunting difficulties, Ms. Brittain finds that some Angolans still demonstrate remarkable resilience and stubbornly cling to the vision of peace and development. She observes that the overthrow in 1997 of the dictatorship in neighbouring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) has shifted the military balance within Angola in the government's favour, offering slightly more hopeful prospects for the future. |
Development with a Human Face: Experiences in Social Achievement and Economic Growth, eds. Santosh Mehrotra and Richard Jolly (UNICEF, New York/Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK; 1997; 493 pp)
Africa: Dilemmas of Development and Change, ed. Peter Lewis (Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, US; 1998; 456 pp; $79 hb, $30 pb)
Reasons for Hope: Instructive Experiences in Rural Development, eds. Norman Uphoff, Milton J. Esman and Nirudh Krishna (Kumarian Press, West Hartford, Connecticut, US; 1996; 320 pp; $40 hb, $23.95 pb)
Microfinance and Poverty Reduction by Susan Johnson and Ben Rogaly (Oxfam, Oxford, UK; 1997; 144 pp; $14.95)
Non-Governmental Organizations and Rural Poverty Alleviation by Roger Riddell et al (Overseas Development Institute, London, with Oxford University Press, Oxford; 1995; 303 pp; £35)
A Peace of Timbuktu: Democratic Governance, Development and African Peacemaking by Robin-Edward Poulton and Ibrahim ag Youssouf (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Affairs, Geneva; 1998; 359 pp)
Policy Implications on Environment: The Case of Villagisation in Tanzania by Idris S. Kikula (Nordiska Africainstitutet, Uppsala, Sweden; 1998; 237 pp; $26.95)
Le séchage solaire à petite échelle des fruits et légumes by Philippe Dudez with André Thémelin and Max Reynes (Gret, Paris; 1997; 160 pp; 25 FF)
World Atlas of Desertification, second edition (United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya; 1997; 185 pp; £145)
African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. Gwendolyn Mikell (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, US; 1997; 392 pp; $19.95)
Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops: Gender and Power in the Cameroon Grassfields by Miriam Goheen (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, US; 1996; 252 pp; $24.95)
Transforming Female Identities/Transformation des Identités Féminines: Women's organizational forms in West Africa/Formes d'organisations féminines en Afrique de l'Ouest, ed. Eva Evers Rosander (Seminar Proceedings No. 31 of Nordiska Africainstitutet, Uppsala, Sweden; 243 pp; $26.95)
Counter-insurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War, 1961-1974 by John P. Cann (Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, US; 1997; 216 pp; $59.95)
