Challenge of the Congo

by Kwame Nkrumah

Challenge of the Congo Kwame Nkrumah First published in 1967, this book provides a contemporary account of Congo's recent history by one of the Heads of State most closely involved.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Africa, History

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Kwame Nkrumah PC was a Ghanaian politician and revolutionary. He was the first prime minister and president of Ghana, having led it to independence from Britain in 1957. An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962.

Reviews

[Omid Wisdom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful..

[William Munis · Rating 4 out of 5]

like it

[Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, blow-by-blow accounting of NATO interference in the Congo its first years of independence. It shows just how brazen Belgium, the UK, and the US were in preventing a nationalist government from coming to power, including active collusion in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.

It also shows how, from its beginnings, the UN was never an effective check on US and Western European imperial ambitions. Even the presence of a years long UN peace-keeping force didn’t prevent the continued intervention of the US and Belgium to protect their economic interests in the Congolese Copper and other mining industries.

Biggest criticism: Way too much of this book is block quotes from Nkrumah’s speeches and correspondence