Congo

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters

Jason Stearns’ Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa discusses a number of topics related to the conflict in Congo. The author is a political activist and a journalist who had been worked on the conflict for the past ten years as well as working with a Congolese human rights group. Later he worked for both, the International Crisis Group and the United Nations peacekeeping operation.

The author traces the evolution of the conflict, which began in 1996, has continued intermittently until today. Stearns provides a clear theoretical analysis of the causes that led the heart of Africa, Congo, to bleed. Also, he used powerful stories from real life to keep things revival and interesting for the reader. He wrote this book in order to grasp the roots of the brutal war and violence that has engulfed in Congo. At least nine governments and twenty various rebel groups have been involved in this conflict. It has cost a staggering five million lives. Nevertheless, this enormous war has received little media coverage, particularly in the Western press. The author attempts to answer why, for example, the conflict in Darfur has received more than four times the conflict in Congo, though the death rate in Congo is more than ten times that in Darfur.