Rating: 
Summary: flawed, but worthwhile analysis
Review: The book has its weaknesses, notably that it's not especially well-written. And her analysis of the West's role in Zaire, especially the IMF, is very shallow. But it is an eyewitness account of a fascinating and tragic story, and that compensates for a lot..
Rating: 
Summary: Michela is Wrong
Review: The CIA, Belgium and the IMF are indeed responsible for the tragedy which is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, it is totally wrong not to implicate the United Nations in the death of the democratically elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and hence take blame for the disastrous and chaotic events that followed. In not honestly dealing with this tragic episode and the UN's history, Mrs Wrong book shows how seemingly honest writers on the modern history of Congo still have not decided to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Rating: 
Summary: Starts off great but somewhat loses momentum in the middle
Review: The first half of the book is a great story of how Belgian rule prepared Congo Mobutu's atrocities and how CIA helped him get to power. Around the middle (as it gets into 80s and 90s) the book gets a bit repetitive and loses momentum. About 2/3 into the book I decided it was time to move on to other things. However, the first half was well worth the money, since I got the book used.
Rating: 
Summary: Greed with a human face
Review: The title seems to me all wrong, but that's about the only complaint I have about this informative, fascinating peek into the last forty or so years of Congo's history. Mobutu was no Kurtz, even if he might have been something worse, and the few parallels drawn do not advance the themes of the book itself. This is a minor complaint, since the book itself is remarkably engaging. By combining a first person perspective on many of the events surrounding Mobutu's last days in office with interviews of the significant players in the Mobutu regime, Wrong is able to paint a broad canvass of those factors that led both to the creation of Mobutu the president and the myths and realities that surround him. It's a fascinating job, and an enlightening one. I, for one, am less enamored of being a dictator than I once was, and certainly more appreciative of those factors, both within a country and without that contribute to their existence. I think however the true glory of this book comes not from the sweeping sociopolitical account of Mobutu's years in powers, but rather from the delicate handling of the details which define life under a totalitarian third world regime. Wrong has a wonderful eye for these things, both within her own experience but also how they manifest themselves in the lives of the downtrodden and impoverished. As the book moves into its final third Wrong's attention to these details fades under the pressure for a resolution that, at least for the people of Congo, never comes.
Rating:
Summary: Unbecoming Leadership
Review: This book about Mobutu goes to show what some leaders in Africa manifest, the attainment of power to do good that degenerates into sycophancy and entrenched corruption. As most leaders in the developing world, Mobutu "greases" the palms of his "opposition" or does away with them if they prove to be too stubborn in their opposition. In any case, he had the backing of the powers that be. At the end of the day, Mobutu is a poster boy for bad leadership in that he failed to harness the immense resources of a vibrant country and succeded in depleting the country and sending her to the brink of collape.
Rating:
Summary: A tale of woe in Mobuto's Congo/Zaire
Review: This book expertly details the litany of woes which have long afflicted the African nation of Congo/Zaire. The book takes the reader on a journey from the colonial days of the Congo through to the present. While blaming many of Africa's problems on its colonial heritage, the author does a superb job of informing the reader about the vastly difficult challenges which lay ahead for any future leader of Congo/Zaire.
Rating:
Summary: Wrong Is Right On
Review: This book is a great follow up to Adam Hochschild's recent account of King Leopold's vicious exploitation of the Congo at the turn of the 20th century, King Leopold's Ghost. Wrong briefly recounts those events and more recent history leading up to the emergence of Mobutu as leader of the Congo which he renamed Zaire. She calls the government he set up a kleptocracy and it is an accurate term for the government of this unfortunate nation. Colonialism set the people of the Congo up to expect corruption and greed from their leaders and the resulting passivity of the people made it ripe for exploitation by its indigenous dictator--an extremely charismatic and corrupt man who played the Western Powers such as the U.S. and France in the game of Cold War power politics. Mobutu stole billions from his potentially rich nation and finagled billions more out of the U.S. and international financial agencies who knew he was corrupt but also a person that they could count on as an ally in an area with many enemies of the West. In order to maintain his hold, Mobutu also had to liberally dole out his ill-gotten gains to those around him. He also employed a bloated bureacracy of 600,000 employees doing the work that could have been done by 50,000. In his later years, his control weakened and the others near the top began further looting beyond Mobutu's awareness or control. For example, In the early 1990s, his generals sold off the entire air force. When Mobutu noticed the planes missing he was told that they had merely been sent to France for servicing and repairs. When he finally figured out what happened a year later, there was nothing he could do about it. Top military people also siphoned off money that was supposed to pay lower ranking military and also inflated the number of members in the army to siphon off more money. Most of the best and brightest who tried to change things for the better were eventually bought off.
Because Zaire was a chief supplier of uranium to the West they were also a "beneficiary" of Western nuclear technology. They have a 40 year old nuclear power plant that is obsolete and they are unable to replace malfunctioning parts. It is now used only to conduct various tests. The thought of a poorly maintained nuclear plant in this corrupt, impoverished and highly unstable land is truly scary.
Wrong also describes the events leading up to the downfall of Mobutu, the invasion of Rwandan and other forces, and the rise of Kabila who merely extended Mobutuism without Mobutu. In this account Kabila is still in charge. He has since been assassinated and his son has taken over. I hope a new paperback edition of this book will be out soon with an update. This is an excellent book, highly recommended for anyone who wants to read about the corrupt politics of central Africa and of the U.S., France, and various international agencies.
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Summary: Anything in English about Central Africa is Not Bad
Review: This book is all right, although a bit overly journalistic. Wrong gets her facts right and certainly has a good grip on the overall picture of the history of Congo/Zaire. I would have liked to have seen a bit more depth, though, for both on the cultural and historical aspects. I thought the pacing was a little uneven, as if it could have used another run through with an editor. But it is an accessible and useful little book on an area of the world that the West did so much to ruin in the past and currently pays so little attention to.
Rating:
Summary: A Nuanced View of a Weird Situation
Review: This book is neither fish nor fowl, and that's one of the things I liked best about it. You do, as another reviewer said, get a "street-urchin's view" of Zaire, but you also get a brief examination of the country's colonial history, talks with retired spies, and a look at Mobotu's lifestyle, ideology and financial manipulations. Wrong also examines what Belgium does (and does not) remember about their sole colonial adventure and places the ideological struggles in Zaire in the context of Cold War geopolitics. We also get a keen portrait of the class that made their fortunes as a result of Mobutu's kleptocracy, the wonderfully named "Big Vegetables," who even as I write this live in fabulous luxury (albeit in exile). "In the Footsteps" is what you would expect if you met a very bright friend who had spent many years in Zaire and said "tell me everything you can about what it's like!" Nicely written too. A first-rate effort.
Rating:
Summary: A good place to start your reading on Congo/Zaire
Review: This book was recommended to me by a bookseller here in Washington, DC when I mentioned my interest in reading King Leopold's Ghost. I have no relationship to the author. Like many U.S. residents, I have a fairly limited understanding of political history and current affairs in African nations. (Not completely so; recent travel in Egypt and Kenya raised some awareness.) Still, I was very appreciative of the author's presentation of the Congo/Zaire story: more a series of snapshots than a linear telling of the events. She did a decent job of suggesting that Mobutu's failings were hardly his own - sharing that responsibility, instead, with Belgium (within the broader context of colonialism) and, more recently, with Western governments and financial institutions (the IMF and the World Bank) that continue to profit from and exploit the African political landscape. Further, the author shows how these larger political games affected the people within its borders: her telling of the workings of the black market economy in the period of mega-inflation had my rapt attention. I also appreciated what the author revealed about how corrupt leadership benefits its collaborators at all levels. (Halliburton, anyone?) I don't think she let Mobutu off the hook; she just didn't slip into that trap of leaving him as Mr. Evil the way that some suggest that Hitler didn't have the collaboration of an entire nation of people. If you approach this book as someone's engaging story of how Congo/Zaire came to be what it is today rather than a historical researcher's dreary recounting of the facts, you'll like this book plenty AND be willing to learn more about the country. Off to King Leopold's Ghost now...
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