The Death of Dignity: Angola's Civil War

by Victoria Brittain

'Tells the miserable story of a revolution destroyed, analysing the moves of the mighty and speaking up for the millions who have suffered as a result.' Guardian 'Few journalists know Angola better than Victoria Brittain. This is an excellent and timely account of a conflict for which we in the West share much of the blame.' Jon Snow

Genres: History, Africa, Angola

Paperback

First published April 1, 1998

Reviews

[Minnie]

I've read this book twice (for my son's studies!!! silly I know but that's imperfect motherhood for you!) and both times I found her biased and totally uncritical acceptance of the MPLA and Cuba in the Angolan WAr off putting. I use that word judiciously because her way of writing and blatantly biased opinion made me suspicious of anything she had to say and that may well have been a mistake on my part. but perhaps it is also because I am a South African who lived through this troubled time in our history knowing that my contemporaries were fighting against the Cubans and the MPLA.

[Rosie Davis]

My first introduction to a lot of these groups and ideas and history. It was good to learn about the horrors but should probably expand my reading to be aware of any biases.

[Cooper Denison]

One of the more biased pieces of non-fiction I’ve read. While she recounts in great detail the massacres and evils of Unita, she presents the MPLA as a heroic regime simply looking to unite Angola under an anti-imperial banner. While the MPLA was almost certainly the lesser of two evils (at least in the early days), this book reads like a piece of propaganda that dos Santos would have certainly like to be distributed more widely.

[Matthew O'Brien]

Too short to offer any real substance. still has interesting information of US and South African foreign policy during the cold war.

[joshua]

This book was almost as sad as reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. The major Western Powers apologetically supported a leader and group in Southern Africa (UNITA) that pioneered some of the worst human atrocities trends in recent history. They commonly abducted kids for soldiers, raped, and hacked of limbs and appendages of civilians. This was to stop the spread of communism, as a Marxist Revolutionary group had gained power in Angola after independence from Portugal.