Book:
A Thousand Hills:
Rwanda’s Rebirth And The Man Who Dreamed It
by Stephen KINZER
After the genocide of 1994, Rwanda was one of the most devastated countries on earth, seemingly headed for either ethnic dictatorship or permanent war. Today, however, it is not only at peace, but bursting with ambition and determined to be the next star of Africa. In his new book, Stephen Kinzer tells how this has happened.
The bestselling author of "All the Shah's Men" profiles one of the most successful revolutionaries of the modern era, tracing the dramatic story of how he seized power in Rwanda and led this shattered country's astonishing recovery.
Paul Kagame grew up as a wretched refugee. He and a group of comrades, determined to force their way back home after a generation of exile, designed one of the most audacious covert operations in the history of clandestine war. Then, after taking power, they amazed the world by stabilizing and reviving their devastated country.
Now, as President Kagame, he's obsessed with a single outlandish dream: to make Rwanda the first middle-income country in Africa, and to do it in the space of a single generation. “A Thousand Hills" tells Kagame's tumultuous life story, including his early fascination with Che Guevara and James Bond, his years as an intelligence agent, his training in Cuba and the United States, the dazzlingly original way he built his secret rebel army, his bloody rebellion, and his outsized ambitions for Rwanda.
It is the adventure-filled tale of a visionary who won a war, stopped a genocide, and then set out to turn his country into the star of Africa--a thrilling and uplifting tale of a man who defied the odds to lift himself and his country out of misery toward a more promising future.
“A fascinating account of the near-miracle unfolding before our very eyes: a country, Rwanda, rising from the ashes of genocide phoenix-like, and its President, Paul Kagame, who is making it happen." --Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"A nuanced portrait of a complex figure in morally ambiguous times." --Library Journal
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