This often entertaining survey of recent African political history should interest both scholars and laypeople.
Retired diplomat Cohen (Intervening in Africa, 2000) provides insight into the tension between dictatorship and democracy in post-colonial Africa.
With his extensive diplomatic experience—he served as director for Central African Affairs and George H.W. Bush’s assistant secretary of state—Cohen is well-placed to comment on African politics for the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy series. He met and negotiated with many African leaders, and he relies on these personal anecdotes rather than stats for context and background. Subjects are helpfully grouped according to their commonalities—Francophone, British Commonwealth, or military chiefs. The work also contrasts recent pairs of leaders in Congo, Liberia, and South Africa. Cohen’s sharp eye reveals dictators’ fascinating and bizarre behavior: Albert-Bernard Bongo of Gabon, a 5-foot-1-inch lothario, tried to change the law so polygamy could be introduced at any point in a marriage; Joseph Désiré Mobutu (the Democratic Republic of the Congo) forced citizens to exchange Western first names for African ones; upon his ousting, Liberia’s Samuel Doe demanded an airlift for his Coca-Cola stash. Many of the politicians profiled held typically contradictory views. They espoused socialist principles while they were patronizing and paternalistic toward their people. Taking the long view both geographically and chronologically, Cohen draws connections among countries and pinpoints the long-term impacts of individual leaders in concise statements. For instance, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe “may be Africa’s last true-believing Marxist-Leninist”; Mobutu Sese Seko “straddled two worlds—the traditional African village culture and Western ways.” Taglines heading each chapter exemplify this ability to encapsulate a politician’s legacy, like “Ibrahim Babangida—Nigeria: The General Who Found Democracy Inconvenient.” Although military coups and illegitimate leadership continue, Cohen is optimistic about Africa’s future, particularly since Obama is willing to show the necessary “tough love.” Sixteen black-and-white images, some of which feature Cohen meeting with the leaders, including Leopold Sedar Senghor and Felix Houphouet-Boigny, accompany the text.
This often entertaining survey of recent African political history should interest both scholars and laypeople.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9864353-1-7
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Vellum
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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