The #1 international bestseller -- chosen as Nonfiction Book of the Year and winner of the Shaughnessy-Cohen prize. A harrowing and ultimately redemptive memoir by the General who commanded the UN forces in Rwanda.
Romeo Dallaire joined the Canadian Army in 1964. A three star General, he served as Deputy Commander of the Canadian Army and later in the Ministry of Defence. In 1993 he was sent to Rwanda on a UN peace-helping mission; he was soon struggling to prevent one of modern history's most shocking events and the UN's famous failed mission- the genocide in Rwanda. General Dallaire was medically released from the armed forces in April 2000 due to posttraumatic stress disorder and is now special adviser to the Canadian government on war-affected children and the prohibition of small arms distribution. In January 2002, he received the inaugural Aegis Award for Genocide Prevention in London. The Rwandan genocide is one of the most shocking examples of political exploitation and ethnic cleansing in living memory. It has been immortalised in the films Hotel Rwanda and Shooting Dogs, and here in the words of a seasoned soldier.
Shake Hands With The Devil is one of the saddest books I have ever
read and one of the most heart-breaking eye-witness accounts.A kind
of naive and painfully honest confession of the failure of an
organisation, a meticulous description of one of the worst
betrayals in the history of humanity.
*Guardian*
indisputably the best account of the whole terrible Rwandan
genocide
*The Sunday Times*
Although this is a deeply personal book, it is undoubtedly an
important historical record of the UN's failure in Rwanda and an
impassioned plea against the moral cowardice that allowed the
genocide to happen.
*The Independent*
As former head of the late 1993 U.N. peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, Canadian general Dallaire's initial proposal called for 5,000 soldiers to permit orderly elections and the return of the refugees. Nothing like this number was supplied, and the result was an outright attempt at genocide against the Tutsis that nearly succeeded, with 800,000 dead over three months. The failure of the U.N.'s wealthier members to act as the tragedy unfolded obliged the author to leave military service to recover from PTSD (as well as the near breakdown of his family). While much of the account is a thickly described I-went-here, I went-there, I-met-X, I-said-this, one learns much more about the author's emotional states when making decisions than in a conventional military history, making this an important document of service-one that has been awarded Canada's Governor General's Award. And his descriptions of Rwanda's unraveling are disturbing, to say the least ("I then noticed large piles of blue-black bodies heaped on the creek banks"). Dallaire's argument that Rwanda-like situations are fires that can be put out with a small force if caught early enough will certainly draw debate, but the book documents in horrifying detail what happens when no serious effort is made. Agent, Nicole Winstanley at Westwood Creative Artists. (Jan.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Shake Hands With The Devil is one of the saddest books I
have ever read and one of the most heart-breaking eye-witness
accounts.A kind of naive and painfully honest confession of the
failure of an organisation, a meticulous description of one of the
worst betrayals in the history of humanity. * Guardian *
indisputably the best account of the whole terrible Rwandan
genocide * The Sunday Times *
Although this is a deeply personal book, it is undoubtedly an
important historical record of the UN's failure in Rwanda and an
impassioned plea against the moral cowardice that allowed the
genocide to happen. * The Independent *
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
