Insight and Analysis from Foreign Affairs Practitioners and Scholars
Established 1996 • Beatrice Camp, Editor
by Michael Cotter The summer of 1984, my wife Joanne and I headed off for assignments—our first as a tandem couple—to Kinshasa, capital of what was then Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My parents, inveterate … Continued
Reviewed by Anthony Quainton Herman J Cohen, The Mind of the African Strongman: Conversations with Dictators, Statesmen, and Father Figures, New Academia Publishing/Vellum, 2015, ISBN-13: 978-098643530, 288 pp. $34.00 (Hardcover), $24.00 (Paperback) In the course of a forty-year career working … Continued
Observations on aid after over four decades of practicing development in Africa by Mark Wentling Abstract All agree that strong institutions are necessary for the achievement of lasting progress. It is widely recognized that strong institutions are essential for nation-building … Continued
Dear Editor, I have just learned that our former colleague Edmund DeJarnette has died. Here is the obituary which appeared last month in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: http://www.richmond.com/obituaries/article_53c74576-c09f-523b-a22c-7f467e4a1cd4.html. Ed DeJarnette was one of the most accomplished Africanists in the Foreign Service, … Continued
Review by Ambassador (ret.) Herman J. Cohen Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa by Piero Gleijeses University of North Carolina Press, 2013, ISBN-13 978-1469609683, 672 pp., Hardcover $40.00, Amazon hardcover $32.00, Kindle $18.19. The … Continued
by Benjamin L. Landis It is apparent without further explanation that the world of Islam from the shores of the Atlantic to the extremities of the Indian Ocean is today in tumult. The causes for these chaotic conditions are rooted … Continued
by Larry LesserJust a few days after I arrived in Rwanda, my secretary Melanie Webb (not her real name) asked to meet with me to discuss a very urgent personal problem — a life-or-death issue involving her boyfriend. I was … Continued
Chapter Sixteen: Cacao cum Cocoa from Africa’s Heart — The Journey Ends in Kansas coming in January 2015 by Mark Wentling “He’s coming!” These words were shouted out loudly by the first sentinel posted at the junction of the village … Continued
by Mark Wentling “Cram-cram,” replied Hadjara, when I asked her what she was eating. She and about thirty other women and a dozen children dressed in flimsy black rags were camped by the last water well in a vast barren … Continued
by Bob BakerMy last years in Africa, 1968-1969, were in Mali, mostly sahel or desert except around the Niger and Senegal rivers. It was called “a hardship post” because of the isolation, heat, diseases, and the local Marxist anti-American dictatorship. … Continued
By Thomas Joscelyn, Senior Fellow, Foundation for the Defense of Democracy http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/political-economic-and-security-situation-in-africa/ Reviewed by Renate Z. Coleshill, Foreign Service Officer, retired Thomas Joscelyn testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian … Continued
by Curtis F. Jones Imperialism comes in two types—hegemonic and colonial. Type I (hegemonic) confines itself to controlling the policies of its foreign subjects, who are regarded as just another natural resource—the labor to operate the government and work the … Continued
Is the Maghreb the Black Swan of US diplomacy?
by Abdelilah Bouasria & Mohamed Abdouh Kabir
Review by David Beechey
Small Wars, Faraway Places: The Genesis of the Modern World 1945 – 1965 by Michael Burleigh, New York & London: Macmillan, 2013, ISBN 13: 978-0230752320, 592 pp.
Review by Adam Clayton Powell III
China and Africa: A Century of Engagement by David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia PA 19104, ISBN 978-0-8122-4419-9, 523 pp.
Review by Amb. (ret.) Gwen Clare
Good Italy Bad Italy, Why Italy Must Conquer Its Demons to Face the Future by Bill Emmott, Yale University Press, 2012, ISBN 13: 978-0300186307, 304 pp. , $19.78 hardcover,