BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Book launch: Why Comrades Go To War - Harry Verhoeven (Georgetown)
 \, Philip Roessler (College of William and Mary)\, Christopher Clapham (di
 scussant\, Cambridge)
DTSTART:20161012T160000Z
DTEND:20161012T173000Z
UID:TALK68048@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Sharath Srinivasan
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a *book launch and drinks* with the authors\, and 
 Professor Christopher Clapham (Cambridge) as discussant:\n\n*_Why Comrades
  Go To War: Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa’s Deadliest C
 onflict_*\n\nBy *Harry Verhoeven* and *Philip Roessler*\nLondon: Hurst & C
 o\, 2016\n\nhttp://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/why-comrades-go-to-war/\n\
 n*The authors:*\n\n*Harry Verhoeven* is an Assistant Professor at Georgeto
 wn University's School of Foreign Service\, Qatar. He is the Convenor of t
 he Oxford University China-Africa Network (OUCAN) and the author of _Water
 \, Civilisation and Power in Sudan. The Political Economy of Military-Isla
 mist State Building_ (CUP\, 2015). He received his DPhil in 2012 from the 
 University of Oxford and is currently also a Visiting Scholar at the Unive
 rsity of Cambridge.\n\n*Philip Roessler* is an Assistant Professor in the 
 Department of Government at the College of William and Mary\, USA\, where 
 he also directs the Center for African Development. He is an expert on con
 flict\, state building\, and development and the author of _Ethnic Politic
 s and State Power in Africa: The Logic of the Coup-Civil War Trap_ (CUP\, 
 2016.)\n\n\n*About the book:*\nIn October 1996\, a motley crew of ageing M
 arxists and unemployed youth coalesced to revolt against Mobutu Seso Seko\
 , president of Zaire/Congo since 1965. Backed by a Rwanda-led regional coa
 lition that drew support from Asmara to Luanda\, the rebels of the AFDL ma
 rched over 1500 kilometres in seven months to crush the dictatorship. To t
 he Congolese rebels and their Pan-Africanist allies\, the vanquishing of t
 he Mobutu regime represented nothing short of a ‘second independence’ 
 for Congo and Central Africa as a whole and the dawning of a new regional 
 order of peace and security.\n\nWithin fifteen months\, however\, Central 
 Africa’s ‘liberation peace’ would collapse\, triggering a cataclysmi
 c fratricide between the heroes of the war against Mobutu and igniting the
  deadliest conflict since World War II. Uniquely drawing on hundreds of in
 terviews with protagonists from Congo\, Rwanda\, Angola\, Uganda\, Tanzani
 a\, Ethiopia\, Eritrea\, South Africa\, Belgium\, France\, the UK and the 
 US\, _*Why Comrades Go To War*_ offers a novel theoretical and empirical a
 ccount of Africa’s Great War.\n\nIt argues that the seeds of Africa’s 
 Great War were sown in the revolutionary struggle against Mobutu—the way
  the revolution came together\, the way it was organized\, and\, paradoxic
 ally\, the very way it succeeded. In particular\, the book argues that the
  overthrow of Mobutu proved a Pyrrhic victory because the protagonists ign
 ored the philosophy of Julius Nyerere\, the father of Africa’s liberatio
 n movements: they put the gun before the unglamorous but essential task of
  building the domestic and regional political institutions and organizatio
 nal structures necessary to consolidate peace after revolution. 
LOCATION:S2\, Alison Richard Building\, Sidgwick Site\, 7 West Rd\, CB3 9D
 T
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR