When I bought the book on Rwanda, it was from a book display with books about Africa, I also picked up Surrender Or Starve by Robert D. Kaplan, since I was a fan of his writing for Atlantic Monthly and his other books (The Coming Anarchy, The Ends of the Earth, and Balkan Ghosts). His journalism reads like a travelogue with interesting asides about the history and culture of the region supplemented by political analysis. I find his writing extremely informative. This book is no exception. He sets out to explain the reasons behind the famine that gripped sub Sahara Africa in the early-mid 80s. It is a reissue, but important if you consider what is being done the black African southerners in Sudan and the fact that Sudan and Yemen are home to some of the most dangerous terrorist in the world.
I find two observations quite profound. One, the famines that received some much notoriety in the 80s from Live Aid and other charitable organizations weren?t caused by droughts, but were mainly due to ethnic civil wars and politics. Kaplan meticulously describes the factors that resulted in widespread famine. He points out that more often than not the real reasons weren't printed due to lack of motivation and the inaccessibility of gathering facts from remote regions where this story was taking place.
The other revealing observation concerns the Africans themselves. It seems that 1000s of people dying of hunger caused little concern or outrage among the middle/class elite in the countries described. One aid worker described it to being like the Russian noble in pre-revolutionary Russia that walked the streets and only saw people like themselves. As usual Kaplan provides an interesting portrait of a little known region and give expert political analysis on the region. I think that Kaplan is one the best foreign correspondents around.
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