The abduction and death in Algeria of Congolese politician Moise Tshombe heralded the start of a 30 year rule of President Mobutu and the steady decline of the Congo. The author contests that Tshombe, now a largely forgotten figure, represented a real alternative hope for democratic development in an era of Western sponsored dictatorships in Africa. Bib, b/w illus, 156pp, UK. WORLDVIEW.

Focusing on the Congo, this book shows how the preservation of the existing economic and social order in the Congo was a key element in the decolonisation process and the fighting of the Cold War. It links the international aspects of British, Belgian, Angolan and Central African Federation involvement with the roles of the US and UN in order to understand how supplies to and profits from the Congo were producing growing African problems. 244pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

Vansina's case study of the colonial experience is the realm of Kuba, a kingdom in Congo about two-thirds the size of its colonial master, Belgium. The experience of its inhabitants is the story of colonial-ism, from its earliest manifestations to its tumultuous end. What happened in Kuba happened to varying degrees throughout Africa and other colonized regions: racism, economic exploitation, indirect rule, Christian conversion, modernization, disease and healing, and transformations in gender relations. The Kuba, like others, took their own active part in history, responding to the changes and calamities that colonization set in motion. Vansina follows the region's inhabitants from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, when a new elite emerged on the eve of Congo's dramatic passage to independence. 348pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS.

New in paperback. Ever since Stanley first charted its mighty river in the 1870s, the Congo has epitomised in the Western mind, the dark and turbulent history of a failed continent - from colonial cruelty under the Belgians to the kleptocratic chaos of Mobutu Seso Seko and the current post-apocalyptic riot of robber-baron politicians. However, its troubles only served to increase the interest of Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher, who was sent to cover Africa in 2000. He remembered his mother's stories of her own genteel river journey there in the 1950s and his connection deepened when he discovered that Stanley's expedition was funded by the Telegraph. Before long he became obsessed with the idea of recreating Stanley's original expedition but travelling alone. Tim Butcher deserves a medal for this crazy feat. I marvel at his courage and his empathy - Thomas Pakenham. Index, bib, b/w photos, maps, 363pp, UK. VINTAGE UK.

In 1960 the Republic of Congo teetered near collapse as its first government struggled to cope with civil unrest and mutinous armed forces. When the UN established a peacekeeping operation to deal with the crisis, the Canadian government faced a difficult decision. Should it support the intervention? By offering one of the first detailed accounts of Canadian involvement in a UN peacekeeping mission, Kevin Spooner reveals that Canada's involvement was not a certainty: the Diefenbaker government had immediate and ongoing reservations about the mission, reservations that challenge cherished notions of Canada's commitment to the UN and its status as a peacekeeper. 280pp, CANADA. UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA PRESS.

The previously untold story of Che Guevara's lost year in Africa. A year before his fateful Bolivia mission, Che Guevara led a group of guerrillas to support the Congolese liberation movement in 1965. The book includes his previously unpublished Congo Diary, which assesses the role of figures within the African liberation movements, among them Patrice Lumumba and Laurent Kabila, leader of the Mobutu regime in Zaire. Bib, 307pp. AUSTRALIA. OCEAN PRESS.

1999 1876175087 Paperback

New in paperback. Autobiography of one of the Cold War's hottest warriors: the CIA Station Chief in the Congo during the tumultuous years of independence. Larry Devlin arrived as the new chief of station for the CIA in the Congo five days after the country had declared its independence, the army had mutinied and governmental authority had collapsed. Within his first two weeks, he found himself on the wrong end of a revolver as militiamen played Russian-roulette with him, Congo style. During his first year, the charismatic and reckless political leader Patrice Lumumba was murdered, and Devlin was widely though to have been entrusted with (he was), and to have carried out (he didn't) the assassination. Then he saved the life of Joseph Desire Mobutu, who carried out the military coup that presaged his own rise to political power. Index, b/w photos, 290pp, UK. PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

Explores the reasons for Cuba's involvement in Congo and considers whether Castro acted from with a master plan, of which Africa was a key component. Considers why the United States allowed Castro to freely export his revolution, and how it used Miami Cuban exiles to thwarting Castro's plans for Congo, which were believed to have included a confederacy with Tanzania and Congo, to gain control of Central Africa and its vast resources. 310pp, USA. TRANSACTION PUBLISHERS.

The people of the Congo have suffered cruelly throughout the past century from a particularly brutal experience of colonial rule; and, following independence in 1960, external interference by the United States annd other powers, a generation-long spoliation at the hands of Mobutu (installed by the west in 1965), and periodic warfare which even now continues fitfully in the east of the country. But, as this insightful political history of the Congolese democratic movement in the 20th century makes clear, the Congolese people have responded by trying both to establish democratic institutions at home and to free themselves from exploitation from abroad. Map, notes, bib, index, xiii, 304pp, UK. ZED BOOKS.

Traces the story of the Congo from the unleashing of King Leopards fury across the region in the 19th century, to the Western sponsored murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 to the war that has ravaged the country since 1997. It is an immensely readable and radical introduction to the Congo that pays attention to the importance of economic production for social organization throughout the country's recent history. It also argues that the nature of global capitalism, far from always leading to modernization, can in fact mean the expansion of private capital accompanied by social collapse. As for the future, the hope is that another politics will emerge from the resistance of ordinary Congolese to imperialist slaughter and the post-independence Mobutu dictatorship. Index, notes, 243pp, UK. ZED BOOKS.

Emily Hahn was one of the most prolific and enduring writers at The New Yorker - her first by-line appeared there in 1926, her last in 1996. She was also the author of fifty-three books, and, had her 1933 travel memoir, 'Congo Solo', not been published in a censored version during the darkest days of the Great Depression, it might well have been hailed as a classic of the genre, alongside Dinesen's 'Out of Africa'. In many ways Hahn's vivid account of her eight-month sojourn in a remote medical clinic was years ahead of its time. A woman who lived life on her own terms, Hahn was an unknown and struggling writer when it was published. Here - restored to the form she had intended - is Hahn's unforgettable narrative, a vivid, provocative, and at times disturbing firsthand account of the racism, brutality, sexism, and exploitation that were everyday life realities under Belgium's iron-fisted colonial rule. Until now, the few copies of the book in circulation were the adulterated version, which the author altered after pressure from her publisher and threats of litigation from the main character's family. This edition makes available a lost treasure of women's travel writing that shocks and impresses, while shedding valuable light on the gender and race politics of the period. B/w photos, 304pp, CANADA. MCGILL-QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Successive waves of armed conflict, mind-numbing atrocities against civilian populations and the persistent pillage of innocent villagers' meagre possessions have been the reality of Eastern Congo since 1996. There have been at least 3 million overwhelmingly civilian casualties and constant military interventions of a partisan and economically self-interested kind by Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia in what is the world's least reported and least understood major war. With the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide still exercising its shockwaves, and United Nations troops in position, but apparently powerless to secure the lives of ordinary citizens, this book throws new light on the interventions of other African powers in the region and cuts through the highly tendentious, competing historical myths that people in the region and beyond resort to in trying to make sense of what is happening. Index, notes, chronology, 243pp, UK. ZED BOOKS.

Reveals West Africa as a significant site of Cold War conflict in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although the region avoided the extreme tensions of the standoff in Eastern Europe or in the Cuban missile crisis, it nevertheless offers a vivid example of political, economic, and propagandistic rivalry between the U.S. and the USSR. For Africa, this was a critical period characterized by decolonization and the formation of African countries' first foreign policies. The United States and the Soviet Union both hoped to win the sympathies of the newly established states, and Sergey Mazov's book is the first account of that competition, which the Soviet Union lost, largely through ignorance of the region. Mazov presents evidence from previously inaccessible or unknown documents in Russian and U.S. archives, as well as an international sampling of recent scholarly works. The rich historical account pays particular attention to the repercussions of Soviet West African experience on future Soviet foreign policy, especially in the Third World. 256pp, USA. STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Describes the creation, the development and the collapse of the Congo Free State and of the Belgian colony that replaced it. Conclusions are drawn about the na-ture of European colonialism and the consequences for Europe itself. BNS, illus, 288pp, UK. CURZON PRESS.

Tells how easy it became after the 1959 revolution to 'take down the rope' that had segregated black and white at public dances, yet how enormous the battle was to transform the social relations underlying this and other 'ropes' inherited from colonialism, capitalism, and US domination. Includes a chapter on Cuba and Africa. B/w ill, index, 182pp, USA. PATHFINDER.

New in paperback. This book examines a decade-long period of instability, violence and state decay in Central Africa from 1996, when the war started, to 2006, when elections formally ended the political transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of concurrent developments in Zaire/DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda in African and international contexts and attempts to show the dynamics of the interrelationships between these realms. 340pp, UK. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

In 1961, during the United Nations intervention in the Katanga conflict in the Congo, central Africa, a company of Irish UN troops was forced to surrender to troops loyal to the Katangese Prime Minister Moise Tshombe. The contingent of Irish UN troops sent to protect the Belgian colonists and local population in Jadotville (now called Likasi) were shamefully attacked by those they were sent to protect. This book is their story. Apps, b/w photos, 383pp, IRELAND. NEW ISLAND.

2006 1905494319 Paperback

An accessible and up to date history of the Congo from the earliest times through to colonialism, independence, and dictatorship. Also includes an annotated bibliography and chronology. Index, maps, notes, 215pp, UK. GREENWOOD.

A study of the political implications of the historical constructs of the Congo, both as a place and as a state of mind. The author looks at four historical periods in which the identity of the people and their landscape was contested and the ways in which this affected a broader concept of identity. Index, bib, notes, 221pp, UK. PALGRAVE, 1403961603

A century after Joseph Conrad's apocalyptic 'Heart of Darkness' the author revisits the Congo as the era of Mobutu Sese Seko collapses into absurdity, anarchy and corruption. Gloss, bib, index, x, 324pp, UK. FOURTH ESTATE, 1841154229

Based on the personal reminiscences of Irish Army veterans who served with the UN peace-keeping forces in the Congo from 1960 to 1964. In addition to tracking down foot soldiers, retired battalion commanders and journalists who covered the Congo, the author has also spoken to Belgians who were part of the pre-independence administration in the huge African colony, Swedish soldiers who played key roles as interpreters for Irish Army units, a Congolese clergyman and a Congolese journalist from Kinshasa. Here, published for the first time, are secret dossiers and previously unpublished photographs of military and civilian life in the newly independent Congo, which challenges the received understanding of such events as the Niemba massacre and the fighting to end the secession of Katanga, including the battle of Jadotville. The Irish Army in the Congo provides fascinating background to the development of UN peacekeeping missions around the world. This was the first major overseas mission in which Irish troops had ever been involved. BNS, 304pp, IRELAND. IRISH ACADEMIC PRESS.

New paperback edition. Hochschild's outstanding study, unmatched by any other work on the Congo, reveals how all Europe - and the USA - contributed to the making of King Leopold's holocaust of the Congolese people.' Nadine Gordimer. Maps, b&w plates, 376pp, notes, bib, index. UK. PICADOR.

Not a new book, but this attack on Belgian policy written for the Congo Reform Association in 1904, is still worth reading. It lambastes the holocaust in the Congo, in which over ten million people died. Congolese people were enslaved, mutilated, whipped, tortured, raped as Belgium secured the region and its vast resources. Contents: Introduction by Stefan Heym, King Leopold's Soliloquy, Supplementary, The United States Government and the Congo State, Interview with Rev. J.H.Harris: Ought King Leopold to Be Hanged? 95pp, b/w illus, USA. INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS, 0717806871

A history of the physical, visible city of Kinshasa and the second, invisible city that exists in the mind and imagination. This ethnography explores the constant transactions between these two cities in Kinshasa's urban landscape. Illustrated with striking photographs by Marie Francoise Plissart. IN FRENCH. Index, 285pp, BELGIUM. AFRICA MUSEUM TERVUREN.

A noble rescue mission descends into a nightmare of cruelty, starvation and cannibalism - bringing to a close the European exploration of Africa. Henry Morton Stanley - the man who found Dr. Livingstone - undertook the greatest African expedition of the nineteenth century. The ostensible aim was to rescue Emin Pasha, last lieutenant of the murdered General Gordon and governor of southern Sudan. Instead of ten months, Stanley's trip took three years and cost the lives of thousands of people, as his column hacked its way through the Congo - the last great unexplored territory in Africa. Stanley's secret agenda was territorial expansion; and what is revealed so vividly in the accounts of those who accompanied him is the dark underside of both the man and the colonial impulse. Index, bib, b/w illus, 356pp, UK. PIATKUS BOOKS.

In the early twentieth century, the worldwide rubber boom led British enterpreneur Lord Leverhulme to the Belgian Congo. Warmly welcomed by the murderous regime of King Leopold II, Leverhulme set up a private kingdom reliant on the horrific Belgian system of forced labour, a programme that reduced the population of Congo by half and accounted for more deaths than the Nazi holocaust. In this definitive, meticulously researched history, Jules Marchal exposes the nature of forced labor under Lord Leverhulme's rule and the appalling conditions imposed upon the inhabitants of Congo. With an extensive introduction by Adam Hochschild, this book is an important and urgently needed account of a laboratory of colonial exploitation. Index, bib, 244pp, UK. VERSO.

Names that Congolese villagers gave to European colonizers reveal much about how Africans experienced and reacted to colonialism. The arrival of explorers, missionaries, administrators, and company agents allowed Africans to observe Westerners' physical appearances, behaviour, and cultural practices at close range - often resulting in subtle yet trenchant critiques. By naming Europeans, Africans turned a universal practice into a local mnemonic system, recording and preserving the village's understanding of colonialism in the form of pithy verbal expressions that were easy to remember and transmit across localities, regions, and generations. 216pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS.

A large and rich anthology of historical essays on methodology, art, language, cultures, economics and society, socio politics and F Bontinck. Notes, tables, b/w illus, Text in French, bib, 472pp, BELGIUM. ROYAL MUSEUM FOR CENTRAL AFRICA.

Second edition of this expose of the destructive role played by the USA in the Congo in the mid sixties. B/w illus, 22pp, USA . PATHFINDER PRESS.

In 1891 a group of mercenaries led by British army officer William Stairs marched nearly 1,000 miles, through once-fertile lands devastated by Arab and African slave traders, to seize the kingdom of Msiri, the most powerful ruler in Katanga. This is the story of the Stairs Expedition, related by the groups medical officer, Joseph Moloney. First published in 1893, Moloneys fascinating narrative evokes a world of cannibals, missionaries and slave traders; of a provocative military invasion and its bloody climax; and of the mercenaries nightmarish return march, racked by starvation and fever, back to the coast of East Africa. A crucial first-person history for anyone curious about the motivation and processes of European conquest in Africa. B/w illus, 194pp, UK. JEPPESTOWN PRESS