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Chapters: List of Heads of Government of the Republic of the Congo, National Assembly of the Republic of the Congo, Senate of the Republic of the Congo, Parliament of the Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo Passport. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 20. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: This article is part of the series:Politics and government ofthe Republic of the Congo (Dates in italics indicate de facto continuation of office) ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=984262 ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (14)

A personal view of the Congo Wars
If you want a very recent book telling what's happening in all the corners of Congo, from a journalist's eyewitness perspective from 2003 to 2007, this is the book for you.Chapter 1 covers the war going on in the East, particularly in the Bunia area.It tells in chilling detail the factions involved, the fighting, and the suffering.The gold near Bunia is of course a major factor in bringing in a host of militias led by warlords who use the gold to purchase arms to control more territory to control more resources.You get the picture.The efforts of the UN forces there are also detailed.

Chapter 2 brings us to Kinshasa, although Mealer spends much of his time (on his own testimony) bar-hopping, getting drunk and boxing while also trying to get information on the eastern wars from the UN offices in Kinshasa.The tensions around the national elections, oft postponed, are described, as are the riots of June 2006 and the final vote.He also went back to Bunia to interview refugees--a source of information throughout the book.

Chapter 3 concerns mainly the battles in Uturi, the attempts by the UN to get rebel leaders like "Cobra" to surrender, and the massacres such as that horrible one in Nyankunde that we all learned about when it happened.Chapter 4 takes us on the inevitable riverboat trip (remember Conrad?), described in colorful detail.He and his two companions, one foreigner and one Congolese, had a luxury boat up to Mbandaka, rough life atop a barge to Ndobo, and an ordeal by bicycle from Bumba to Kisangani.

The final chapter begins at Lubumbashi, with an eventful and challenging train trip to Kongolo, then Kalemi, again beginning in a relatively luxurious living situation, then a declining one as time went by.

Mealer gives the historical background to the geographical locations he is narrating, so there is a lot of chronological forwarding and backtracking, sometimes a bit confusing, but in general accurate.He ends with good policy recommendations, and his prose is stylish and creative.In general he gives an accurate picture of the situation in Congo today, and had courageously lived outside the protective cocoon most foreigners live in, suffering the tough situations that most Congolese endure.

A beautiful darkness
One part travelogue and one of adventure, another of reporting and yet another of tortuous self discovery, 'All Things..." is all of these things, yet hostage to none of them.To step into this world is to fling onself into a forced march through a landscape of incomprehensible horrors and ineffable wonders.After I turned the last page and followed the last words into silence, I walked around for days marveling at what a thing of beauty this is.

Paul VanDevelder, author of Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial that Forged a Nation

Exceeds Expectations
Travel and the understanding of cultures different than our own should force the traveler, writer, reporter, painter, whatever, into a variety of situations and realities from which they can learn.If Mealer's book had remained a chronicle of the Congo wars, all of the rest of that experience would have been lost.Beyond that, it would have continued a tradition of looking at the "other" as some exotic beast that needs taming.The idea to show that in order to try and understand what had happened---hell, what is happening there----that Mealer had to release his own self and turn things over to chance and an open set of senses, was the best part of the book for me.It moved the book away from pure chronicling into something else, perhaps a truer form of journalism, of writing.By the end Mealer has built up so many vantage points, so many series of losses and gains it leaves the reader confounded as to the depth of Congo and your experience there.And confounding the reader isn't necessarily a bad thing.I tend to agree with William Styron when he said, "What I really mean is that a great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it."Mealer's book did that.

An incomplete, biased and unexamined account
Bryan Mealer has attempted to do the impossible: represent the suffering of a nation in the midst of war and for that I give him credit. However, as a White, Ameican middle class woman who lived in Eastern Congo in 2005-06, I find much of his book to be deeply problematic. This is not a historic account of the war; nor is it an attmept to unpack and examine the myriad factors that instigated the conflict and continue to cause unrest even now; rather, it seems to be one man's biased and often aggrandized account of his willingness to "risk his life" to bring us a litany of disconnected stories from "the heart of darkness." As a book, it is little more than a re-construction of Europeans as noble and technologcally-advanced and Congolese as savage and backward. This is an extremely dangerous myth to perpetuate via mainstream American media, a medium already saturated in representations of Africans as starving, disease-ridden and hopelessly corrupt. While the horror of the war is certainly a reality, Mealer ignores the complex political underpinnings which, if exposed in depth, would serve as a scathing indictment of countless Western governments, including our own. Gerard Prunier's seminal text on the Rwandan genocide is an example of what good war reporting can be. This book, on the other hand,is a sad reminder that the war in Congo DOES deserve press coverage. Just not the kind delivered here.

A good way to learn about a distant and strange country
Highly recommended. Reading this book I learned a lot about the history of Congo and the suffering of its people. Once you started reading you can't really put it down. But be warned: The stories about gunboys, militia and so on are really cruel and reading about their atrocities makes you want to throw the book against the wall or shout at somebody. ... Read more

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The populations of many Third World mega-cities have far outstripped any apparent economic basis for their size and survival. In this volume Congolese and Western social scientists cover most aspects of urban life in Kinshasa--how ordinary people hustle for a modest living; the famous "bargaining" system ordinary Kinois have developed; and how they access food, water supplies, health and education. The NGOization of service provision is analyzed, as is the quite rare incidence of urban riots. Equally interesting are the studies of popular discourses (including street rumor, witchcraft, and attitudes to big men, like musicians and preachers). The studies are full of the most startling facts and the wonderfully evocative phrases coined by ordinary Kinois as they confront the huge obstacle course that is urban life. Concrete, readable, intensely interesting, and always illuminating, this book is a model of how to do urban sociology in the developing world today.
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Customer Reviews (3)

Incredible--fascinating book
This is a sociological study of the people living in Kinshasa, Zaire. You will enter another world of perception, such as the first world and second world of the witch-children, the child-soldiers, of cannibalism, the mire of sex and sorcery. It is broken down into individual essays by leading sociologists regarding the economy, survival on the streets, witchcraft, prostitution, matriarchal system ect...

It is hair-raising and unbelievable at times. If you plan on going to the DRC, this book could save your life.

For the love of Congo
Theodore Trefon is an excellent editor for Reinventing Order in the Congo: How People Respond to State Failure in Kinshasa. Ifound myself mesmerized by the book, the sorrows of the people, their efforts to survive. Reading the book,I could hardly recognize the city that I loved in the 70's, so exuberant, dancing at the Cafe de la Paix! Trefon clearly has an understanding of the people who have suffered so many wars, so many Grosse Legumes, so many losses. Nevertheless, there is a strength to the people, hoping to find a bit of something to eat,to find a bit of humor, to make something out of their difficult days. How have they survived Leopold, Mobutu, and all the others, with strength. Hustling to stay alive, listening to their bits of hope, we realize that they are stronger than we. As Theodore Trefon and others tell their stories,you will be unable to lift your eyes from the text, and the power of these citizens who still manage some dignity and pride despite all wars, and degradation. Let Congo rise again.

Exciting new approach to the study of failed states
Since the term "failed state" was coined in 1992 by Helman and Ratner, many articles have been written about states that don't work. After September 11th, US, Canadian and European national security policies set out commitments to work in failed states on the grounds that lack of order and security in such states presented a threat to international security. The increased emphasis on peacebuilding which has resulted (and is most evident in Iraq and Afghanistan) has led to extensive discussion about how best to rebuild failed or collapsed states. But most books and articles have focused on the "big picture" - on lack of governance of the state, rather than on how the people of that state manage to live within the chaos that surrounds them.

This book, which looks at the capital city of what most observers regard as a "collapsed" state, brings a welcome new perspective. As Margaret Wheatley showed us some years ago, even within organizational chaos, there is order, if you know how to look for it. In this case, the order can be found at the local level, within Kinshasa, the capital of the huge and resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo. This book shows how the Kinois, as Kinshasa's residents call themselves, manage to create order within their own lives. For example, in a setting where many people eat only once every two days, starvation is not at the levels that would otherwise be expected, because people have developed their own social systems and structures for obtaining and distributing food. And as in many such states, women play a key role in this alternative system.

Looking within failed states for order is an exciting new approach in this field, both in scholarly terms and in terms of offering new ideas for how peacebuilding can be designed to work effectively in failed states. The international community spends a great deal of money in trying to rebuild failing and failed states. This book offers a new perspective that will be valuable for both policy-makers and peacebuilders alike, in showing us peoples' great creativity and capacity to create order even when governance structures collapse around them.
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Chapters: President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, List of Heads of Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, List of Heads of State of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, List of Governors of Kinshasa, Senate of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Agence Nationale de Renseignements, Ministry of Health, Institut Congolais Pour La Conservation de La Nature, Parliament of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Transitional National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 51. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: This article is part of the series:Politics and government ofthe Democratic Republic of the Congo The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second institution in the central executive branch of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the first institution being the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who has the title of head of state. Under the constitution of the Third Republic, the government is composed of a cabinet of ministers, deputy-ministers (vice-ministers), and occasionally state-ministers (which is a senior personal honorific title). The number of these ministers vary from one government to the next. The cabinet is headed by the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as the head of government, appointed by the President, from the political party, the group or the coalition that holds the majority of seats in the National Assembly. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the cabinet is more commonly simply referred to as The Government. The government is the effective exe...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=9430937 ... Read more

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This study of transnational trade between Central Africa and Europe focuses on the lives of individual traders from Kinshasa and Brazzaville who operate across national frontiers and often outside state laws. Excluded from other social and economic opportunities, participation by traders in this international second economy challenges and resists the constraints on their lives in both Africa and Europe. Their trading activities are unmeasured, unrecorded, often outside or on the margins of the law, and are sustained by complex networks through which their commodities are circulated. Who are these traders? What strategies do they have, not only to survive but to shine? What kind of networks do they rely on? And what implications does their trade have for globalization? The authors consider these and other questions in this study. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This lively book shows benefit from jets and mobile phones.
Congo-Paris: Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law is about globalization as practiced by Congolese traders who operate a thriving second economy linking Central Africa and Europe. She investigates the transnational trade between Central Africa and Europe by focusing on the lives of individual traders from Kinshasa and Brazzaville, who operate across national frontiers and often outside the law. Challenging the boundaries of anthropology, Janet MacGaffey follows complex international networks to examine the ways in which the African second economy has been extended transnationally and globally on the margins of the law. Who are these traders? What strategies do they have, not only to survive but also to shine? What kinds of networks do they rely on? What implications does their trade have for the study of globalization? The personal networks of ethnicity, kinship, religion, and friendship constructed by the traders fashion a world of their own. From Johannesburg to Cairo and from Dakar to Nairobi as well as in Paris, the Congolese traders are renowned and envied. This lively book shows that it is not just the multinationals that benefit from jets and mobile phones.

Crossing boundaries, in more ways than one
"Congo-Paris" is a fine example of the recent trend in anthropology away from the localized study of communities and towards analysis that transcends geographic boundaries.Not that this study is "multi-sited" (to use the dominant buzzword):MacGaffey and Bazenguissa conducted their fieldwork for the book entirely in Paris, interviewing dozens of subjects from both Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa.But Paris is just one venue in these transnational subjects' life histories as they range back and forth across national, legal, commercial, and cultural frontiers.

While the authors set out to validate the Congolese quest for relief from political and economic hardship at home, the image they present of this loosely-defined community of traders will do nothing for its image abroad.These individuals define themselves through the act of quietly circumventing the rules (particularly import duties and immigration laws), resisting governmental authority without manifesting any visible signs of dissent.This is understandable, given the corrupt and authoritarian Congolese regimes of recent decades.But the transnational traders' ethos of stealthy noncompliance extends to their overseas existence as well, with the result in these Parisian cases being a gamut of criminal activity from smuggling and apartment squatting to drug dealing and theft."Model immigrants" they are not, regardless of whether their behavior represents a survival strategy.One wonders just how representative this underworld is of the larger community of Congolese living in Paris, and whether those Congolese living more lawful existences there object to being tarred with this brush of illegality.

Such moral qualms aside, I give "Congo-Paris" high marks for its thorough and penetrating analysis of its subjects, a very difficult group to interview given its members' legal status and clandestine activities.No doubt its success owes much to the collaboration between MacGaffey (British) and Bazenguissa (Congolese).The book also skillfully negotiates the difficult and shifting theoretical territory of anthropology to bring outside perspectives to bear on its subjects.Finally, it makes a strong case for redefining anthropology in the context of ongoing processes of globalization.I suspect that we will be seeing a good many more studies like this one in the future. ... Read more

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He was known as "the Leopard," and for the thirty-two years of his reign Mobutu Sese Seko, president of Zaire, showed all the cunning of his namesake, seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's copper and diamond resources, downing pink champagne in his jungle palace like some modern-day reincarnation of Joseph Conrad's crazed station manager.

Michela Wrong, a correspondent who witnessed firsthand Mobutu's last days, traces the rise and fall of the idealistic young journalist who became the stereotype of an African despot. Engrossing, highly readable, and as funny as it is tragic, her book assesses how Belgium's King Leopold, the CIA, and the World Bank all helped to bring about the disaster that is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. If, in this poignant account, the villains are the "Big Vegetables"  (les Grosses légumes) -- the fat cats who benefited from Mobutu's largesse -- the heroes are the ordinary citizens trapped in a parody of a state. Living in the shadow of a disintegrating nuclear reactor, where banknotes are not worth the paper they are printed on, they have turned survival into an art form. For all its valuable insights into Africa's colonial heritage and the damage done by Western intervention, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz is ultimately a celebration of the irrepressible human spirit.Amazon.com Review
During Mobutu Sese Seko's 30 years as president of Zaire (now the Congo), he managed to plunder his nation's economy and live a life of excess unparalleled in modern history. A foreign correspondent in Zaire for six years, Michela Wrong has plenty of titillating stories to tell about Mobutu's excesses, such as the Versailles-like palace he built in the jungle, or his insistence that he needed $10 million a month to live on. However, these are not the stories that most interest Wrong. Her aim is to understand all of the reasons behind the economic disintegration of the most mineral-rich country on the African continent; in so doing, she turns over the mammoth rock that was Mobutu and finds a seething underworld of parasites with names like the CIA, the World Bank and the IMF, the French and Belgian governments, mercenaries, and a host of fat cats who benefited from Mobutu's largesse and even exceeded his rapaciousness.

Wrong turns first to Belgian's King Leopold II, who instituted a brutal colonial regime in the Congo in order to extract the natural and mineral wealth for his personal gain. Mobutu, with the aid of a U.S. government determined to sabotage Soviet expansion, stepped easily into Leopold's footsteps, continuing a culture built on government-sanctioned sleaze and theft. Under the circumstances, it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the people who survived in the only ways they could--teachers trading passing grades for groceries, hospitals refusing to let patients leave until they paid up, cassava patches cultivated next to the frighteningly unsafe nuclear reactor. What is less comprehensible--and rightly due for an airing--are Wrong's revelations about foreign interventions. Why, for example, did the World Bank and IMF give Mobutu $9.3 billion in aid, knowing full well that he was pocketing most of it?

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz is a brilliantly conceived and written work, sharply observant and richly described with a necessary sense of the absurd. Wrong paints a far more nuanced picture of the wily autocrat than we've seen before, and of the blatant greed and paranoia of the many players involved in the country's self-destruction. --Lesley Reed ... Read more

Customer Reviews (50)

A Fascinating View
In The Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz follows the history of Mobutu Sese Seko, president of Zaire. The Mr. Kurtz in the title is, of course, Joseph Conrad's character from The Heart Of Darkness; a European who came to conquer the African Congo but instead found failure and madness.Mobutu was a young scholar and military leader when he took over the reins of the newly independant Zaire. Unlike many African leaders who reign for short periods of time, Mobutu reigned for over thirty years, and took a vibrant, thriving economy to ruins in the process.

Michele Wrong follows and tries to understand what went wrong. The biggest part of the problem was the sheer amount of money that Mobutu and his family and friends took out of the country. Hundreds of millions of dollars were diverted from trade, aid, and thriving businesses to their secret bank accounts. While Mobutu was a master manipulator of people and understood how to do that, he was bored by economic concepts and ignored what his policies did to the country.
Wrong covers all the areas in this tragedy. Those who had thriving businesses but were not African had their properties confiscated. Aid meant for refugees was diverted, and by the time Mobutu left, the average life expectency had fallen to the mid-fifties and diseases that had been reined in were once again rampent. Trade with other countries had dried up, as no one could count on contracts being honored. One of the richest countries in resources was left with a crumbling infrastructure and everyday services such as phones or electricity worked on a hit-or-miss basis.

This was an interesting book. I found the history itself interesting, as well as the blame that could be apportioned to international agencies like the IMF, which continued to give huge loans to Zaire when it was evident they would not be repaid, or the governments of Belgium, France and the U.S., which provided help to Mobutu regardless of his actions under the theory of "better the devil you know". This book is recommended for those interested in the history of Africa, or in reading how the best of plans often go astray.

Thought-provoking, moving, tragic.
A moving and tragic book, engagingly and often beautifully written.

Ms Wrong offers a host of hair-raising details about life in a country in which the rule of law has evaporated.The protections that most Westerners take for granted are totally absent; the local people, of course, never had these protections.Those in power (colonial, national, international, politicians, corporations) have many motives for their actions, but none of these motives seem to include improving the quality of life of the population.

What a great case study in self delusion!Mobutu and his associates never see the change in themselves as they pass from hopeful idealism to a sense of entitlement to outright corruption.As Mobutu deprives Congo's impoverished citizens of education and medical care in favor of spending the country's riches on foolish personal extravagance, he can't understand why he is not beloved as the savior of his people.What is wrong with them? Why are they so ungrateful?

To me, as an aside, this goes beyond "power corrupts"and calls out for an analysis from the perspective of the recent studies in the neurophysiology of memory!

One of the most memorable books I have read.

Mobutu Sese Seko - incompetence looking for somewhere to happen.
We've all heard the tale told so many times it's boring. How a local strongman poorly equipped for political or economic leadership manages via brutality and cunning to circumvent whatever the political process of the day is in order to install himself as totalitarian dictator of an otherwise impoverished nation. And it's perhaps that rolling of the eyes many of us get when hearing of it happening yet again, that deep breath as you try to stifle some politically incorrect utterance that makes this such an important book. Because I feel it is. I was a total layman in respect to this Mobuto chap, I only bought the book because it was reviewed in a travel magazine I was reading. Yet the author has walked the fine line between boring me to tears with too much detail and making me feel cheated by not including enough.

The overall situation of the country is discussed, the rise of Mobutu is talked about, the guy is to a certain extent humanised by the authors assertion that he can and should at times be viewed through the prism of a traditional African tribal strong man looking after his followers. Or lackeys. The chronology of the descent into economic madness and Mobotus' inability to grasp that he had no clue and to at least instal economically competent people into the corrct positions of authority is laid bare for all to see. The seemingly inevitable fracturing of society and support - usually based (drum roll please) on tribal affiliations if not at least geographic ones is also shown and the reader is left to experience a taste of the exasperation that must of been the lot of any foreign company trying to do business with such a mixture of volatile politics and seemingly wilful stupidity.

I found this book from the title down to be an interesting proposition. Literary yet not condescending, straight forward yet brimming with detail and the authors enthusiasm for her subject did come through. For those fascinated with post colonial Africa or anyone likely to be posted there for work this would be an illuminating read.

Should be required reading...
Just finished reading this.Wow.It should be required reading for anyone wanting to learn about the Congo/Zaire.

Dead Leopard
This is a mostly fascinating on-the-ground report of the waning years and immediate aftermath of Mobutu Sese Seko's incompetent dictatorship in Zaire (Congo). Michela Wrong offers a well-rounded journalistic report that digs into the bizarre depths of kleptocracy, as the potentially prosperous Zaire was bled dry while Mobutu and his ever-shifting gang of cronies and yes-men lived in ridiculous luxury, oblivious as their subjects suffered some of the worst poverty and hardship on Earth. Wrong gains plenty of insight into Mobutu's style of governance, as he spread favors around egregiously and played other powers off each other in an increasingly paranoid effort to maintain his own influence, stealing or blowing away untold billions of dollars in the process. Wrong also reports on the aftermath of Mobutu's pathetic downfall, as a convoluted series of atrocities related to the genocide in tiny Rwanda eventually led to the replacement of Mobutu's kleptocracy with Kabila's thugocracy.

There is a running theme, which Wrong could have dwelled upon more, about how the ugly history of European colonialism and exploitation has forever wrecked the ability of Africa's peoples to build their own functioning societies, while Zaire suffered the tragic fate of a home-grown dictator who ruined his people as badly as the colonialists did. Cold War politics and shifting loyalties in endless proxy wars added to the misery. The tail end of the book gets a bit messy as well, degenerating into disconnected chapters on various items of interest, as Wrong's writing takes on some of the disjointed chaos that plagued the country itself during Mobutu's downfall. The British slang and grammatical patterns of Wrong's writing style can also lead to some confusion for American readers. But despite missed opportunities to dwell on some crucial historical lessons, here we get an engaging history of a dictator who is fascinating in his ineptitude and corruption. [~doomsdayer520~] ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Publisher: London : S. Low, Marston and Company; Publication date: 1903; Subjects: Congo (Democratic Republic); Zaire; History / Africa / General; History / Africa / Central; History / Europe / Western; Travel / Europe / Benelux Countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg); ... Read more