Dictatorland by Paul Kenyon

Dictatorland

The Men Who Stole Africa

Paul Kenyon

Bloomsbury USA · Print & ebook · June 1, 2019

A Financial Times Book of the Year 'Jaw-dropping' Daily Express 'Grimly fascinating' Financial Times 'Humane, timely, accessible and well-researched' Irish Times The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast.

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Who it’s for
A clear, compact way into Africa’s postcolonial strongmen and the systems around them.
Genres
African Politics, African History, West African History
Published
Bloomsbury USA, June 1, 2019

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About this book

A Financial Times Book of the Year 'Jaw-dropping' Daily Express 'Grimly fascinating' Financial Times 'Humane, timely, accessible and well-researched' Irish Times The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces.

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In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the saviour of Africa and waged a relentless campaign of terror against his own people. The Libyan army officer who authored a new work of political philosophy, The Green Book, and lived in a tent with a harem of female soldiers, running his country like a mafia family business. And behind these almost incredible stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds and gold that has encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand, siphoning off their share of the action into mansions in Paris and banks in Zurich and keeping their people in dire poverty.

Clear Entry

A clear, compact way into Africa’s postcolonial strongmen and the systems around them.

Come here for

  • accessible political history
  • cultural literacy with regional breadth

Expect

  • easy-to-follow historical framing
  • works as reference, read-through, or gift

Where it sits

African Politics45%
African History18%
West African History18%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • African History
  • 20th-Century History
  • African Politics
Authors
Paul Kenyon
Publisher
Bloomsbury USA
Published
June 1, 2019
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
African History