's Best of 2001
During Mobutu Sese Seko's 30 years as president of Zaire (now the Congo), he managed to plunder his nation's economy and live a life of excess unparalleled in modern history. A foreign correspondent in Zaire for six years, Michela Wrong has plenty of titillating stories to tell about Mobutu's excesses, such as the Versailles-like palace he built in the jungle, or his insistence that he needed $10 million a month to live on. However, these are not the stories that most interest Wrong. Her aim is to understand all of the reasons behind the economic disintegration of the most mineral-rich country on the African continent; in so doing, she turns over the mammoth rock that was Mobutu and finds a seething underworld of parasites with names like the CIA, the World Bank and the IMF, the French and Belgian governments, mercenaries, and a host of fat cats who benefited from Mobutu's largesse and even exceeded his rapaciousness.

Wrong turns first to Belgian's King Leopold II, who instituted a brutal colonial regime in the Congo in order to extract the natural and mineral wealth for his personal gain. Mobutu, with the aid of a U.S. government determined to sabotage Soviet expansion, stepped easily into Leopold's footsteps, continuing a culture built on government-sanctioned sleaze and theft. Under the circumstances, it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the people who survived in the only ways they could--teachers trading passing grades for groceries, hospitals refusing to let patients leave until they paid up, cassava patches cultivated next to the frighteningly unsafe nuclear reactor. What is less comprehensible--and rightly due for an airing--are Wrong's revelations about foreign interventions. Why, for example, did the World Bank and IMF give Mobutu $9.3 billion in aid, knowing full well that he was pocketing most of it?

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz is a brilliantly conceived and written work, sharply observant and richly described with a necessary sense of the absurd. Wrong paints a far more nuanced picture of the wily autocrat than we've seen before, and of the blatant greed and paranoia of the many players involved in the country's self-destruction. --Lesley Reed

From Publishers Weekly
The beauty of this book is that it makes sense of chaos. For the past few decades, the Congo, one of Africa's richest countries in natural resources, has been in an economic decline that has resulted in violence and lawlessness. Wrong, a British journalist who spent six years covering Africa as a reporter for European news agencies, skillfully balances history with nuanced reportage. She details the "discovery" of the Congo by the British explorer Lord Stanley, the land's subsequent exploitation by the Belgian King Leopold II for his own personal benefit and the role of the United States and other Western nations in propping up Joseph Mobutu. Without apologizing for his brutal regime, Wrong explains how the cold war dictator used a mixture of terror and charisma to maintain his hold on the country for three decades. But although the roots of the country's downfall are traced to Western policies the book's title comes from Joseph Conrad's famous anticolonialist novel this book is no anti-imperialist screed. What Wrong finds is a widespread refusal, among Westerners and Congolese alike, to accept responsibility for the country's deterioration, which has led to a situation in which "each man's aim is to leave Congo, acquire qualifications and build a life somewhere else." And when Wrong uses her keen eye to describe contemporary life in Congo as in her portrayal of the handicapped businessmen's association the streets of this now-wretched nation come alive. Illus. (Apr. 29)Forecast: Wrong will come to the States to do a three-city tour: New York, D.C. and Boston. This fine book should benefit from being one of several books on Africa coming out, including Ryszard Kapuscinski's (see above) and Bill Berkeley's The Graves Are Not Yet Full (Forecasts, Mar. 26).Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This is a terrific if disheartening book. A foreign correspondent and eyewitness to the demise of Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire in 1997, Wrong combines travelog with astute political analysis. In lively prose, she traces the country's dysfunction to its history of permitting outsiders to exploit its wealth of natural resources, including diamonds, timber, and oil. Indeed, the very borders of Zaire, now Congo, reflect not geographic or ethnic realities but bargains struck between late 19th-century European firms and tribal chiefs. The key to Mobutu's survival despite his infamous corruption and ordinary citizens' professed loathing for him was his ability to forge a sense of nationhood amid the chaotic conditions he inherited. Whoever succeeds Laurent Kabila who ousted Mobutu before being assassinated early this year will gain not the presidency of a viable nation-state but the power to barter natural riches for political support abroad. Recommended for all academic collections. James R. Holmes, Ph.D. candidate, Fletcher Sch. of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts Univ., Medford, MA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
As a foreign correspondent, Wrong witnessed the final days of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. She draws parallels between Mobutu's oppressive regime and the colonialism of King Leopold II of Belgium. She details the deterioration of the actually wealthy nation--its widespread corruption, lack of basic modern services, disintegrating nuclear power plant, and perverse economic system, which encourages theft. She describes the drive and ambition of ordinary citizens--the cripples hustling in the black market between Zaire and equally troubled Rwanda, and the powerful women who run currency trading operations in the alleys between big city buildings. She examines the colonial legacy, of which modern Belgians are ignorant, not least because they cringe from recognizing any possible linkage between Belgium's frighteningly efficient, "kleptocratic" exploitation of old and Mobutu's excesses, wrought on a national community primed for a repeat performance. In Leopold and Mobutu alike, Wrong sees manifestations of the power-crazed Mr. Kurtz in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. A riveting inspection of the legacy of European colonialism in Africa. Vanessa Bush
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FROM OUR EDITORS

The Mr. Kurtz of the title is, of course, the shadowy ivory dealer Marlow seeks in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." Michela Wrong describes a more modern, yet equally bizarre embodiment of evil, Joseph Mobutu, the now-deceased president of Zaire. From 1965 to 1997, Mobutu ruled this mineral-rich country, converting its diamonds, gold, uranium, oil, and copper into bankable wealth. While the average Zaire worker was attempting to survive on an annual income of $120, Mobutu was bleeding his country of at least $4 billion. Wrong's supercharged story wrings the truth of one of recent history's most monstrous misdeeds.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a country rich with diamonds, gold, copper, uranium, oil, and timber, the average worker was reduced to a living income of $120 a year under the rule of Mobutu. From 1965 to 1997, his regime bled the country of some $4 billion. This is both a brilliant journalistic account and a grimly humorous story set amid the heart of the apocalypse—a nation plunged back to the Iron Age, whose citizens miraculously continue to survive.

FROM THE CRITICS

London Times

Michela Wrong has written a cool, glittering, kaleidoscopic book. Her acount of the fall of Kinshansha and Mobutu's flight have something of the flavor of Evelyn Waugh's African travel books.

Financial Times

A superb book...the absorbing, witty, and wryly observed account of Mobutu's reign and collapse.

Jonathan Yardley

Wholly unsentimental ... Wrong gets it right ... [a] chillingly amusing cautionary tale. —Washington Post Book World

William Shawcross

A superb book ... the absorbing, witty, and wryly observed account of Mobutu's reign and collapse. —Financial Times

Sunday Times

Provocative, touching, and sensitively written ... an eloquent, brilliantly researched account and a remarkably sympathetic study of a tragic land. Read all 7 "From The Critics" >

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