Angola: Promises and Lies

Combining finely detailed reportage with anecdotal snapshots of the horrors of war, Maier, a correspondent for The Independent and the Washington Post who began reporting on Angola in 1986, offers an explanation of the Angolan civil war for the rest of us. His engrossing chronological account lays out the nearly two decades of conflict that have ripped apart the southern African nation. An inability to resolve differences rooted in race, political ideology and tribal ethnicity has set contemporary Angola on a highway to hell instead of the road to prosperity its vast reserves of natural resources promised. Maier notes with some irony that American oil companies have continued their drilling operations throughout the war. He also intelligently positions the conflict's historical import as one of the last battlegrounds for the combatants in the Cold War. Despite a glossary defining the plethora of acronyms that riddle the pages, some readers may have a hard time following which faction is fighting for what side during, first, Angola's war for independence from its colonial Portuguese rulers and, second, the lengthy civil war that continues today. Maier tells his story in the present tense, which makes the book read like dispatches from today's paper. The writer's sharp eye for detail catches a swarm of hungry Angolans falling upon a bag of maize that foreign aid workers have dropped onto an airport tarmac. The powder sifts through their emaciated fingers as they try to stash it in strips of fabric tied around their concave chests. More of this kind of personal observation and reflection would have added to the book's compelling narrative. (Sept.)