Dictatorland cover art

Dictatorland

The Men Who Stole Africa

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

Dictatorland

By: Paul Kenyon
Narrated by: Hamilton McLeod
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £18.79

Buy Now for £18.79

Bloomsbury presents Dictatorland by Paul Kenyon, read by Hamilton McLeod.

A Financial Times Book of the Year

'Jaw-dropping' Daily Express
'Grimly fascinating' Financial Times
'Humane, timely, accessible and well-researched' Irish Times

The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the saviour of Africa and waged a relentless campaign of terror against his own people. The Libyan army officer who authored a new work of political philosophy, The Green Book, and lived in a tent with a harem of female soldiers, running his country like a mafia family business.

And behind these almost incredible stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds and gold that has encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand, siphoning off their share of the action into mansions in Paris and banks in Zurich and keeping their people in dire poverty.©2018 Paul Kenyon (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 20th Century Africa Corruption & Misconduct Modern Politics & Government World Imperialism Colonial Period War Military Middle East Latin American
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c

Critic reviews

The stories it tells of dictators such as Robert Mugabe and Muammer Gaddafi are grimly fascinating and leave the reader to ponder why so many of Africa's liberation heroes turned into villains
A humane, timely, accessible and well-researched book that shines a light on urgent African issues [...] that, when we consider the state of our own societies, can no longer be dismissed as merely somewhere else's problem
Paul Kenyon is a brilliant writer who's been there and tells a story of unparalleled greed and western complicity in vivid detail (Michael Buerk)
It is [the] minute observations that make Mr Kenyon's book so hard to put down
Mr Kenyon narrates a jaw-dropping tale of greed, corruption and brutality
Well written and sensibly structured... Some of the most revealing passages are based on interviews with retired expatriate executives and diplomats who were witness to the excesses of the early post-colonial years'
Kenyon's stories of corruption and excess are truly compelling, while his analysis of the West's motivations is astute and illuminating
A heart-breaking and stomach-churning history but also an utterly absorbing one... Kenyon blends in gripping, authenticating first-hand testimonies from those who were behind the carnage and corruption... This book shines a vital light on how Africa was robbed "in broad daylight"'
Highly readable... A chapter on the rise of Félix Houphouët-Boigny is especially vivid'
A familiar story, but still shocking
All stars
Most relevant
This is a fascinating , well researched book on an important aspect of African political history. We hear a lot about the damage of colonialism but what came after cannot be blamed on that. The huge theft of natural resources income into these men’s pockets and the loss of life that goes on still hand in hand with this needs to be known more widely.

A must read f

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
informative and also extremely digestible. which is no easy skill. really enjoyed this. harrowing in parts

brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A brilliant and at times harrowing chronicle of how a continent has been systematically abused by its ruling elite.

Phenomenal

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Do not hesitate. Once the narrator gets into his stride his interpretation brings more life to the reader. I soon eagerly awaited my next listening session. The work that went into the text is truly inspiring. Surely a credit to Paul’s lifetime achievement. I had set out to revisit all the news I’d missed in the 70’s about the upheavals in Africa. There was so much I didn’t know and this work has taken me to the next level and improved my humanitarian outlook on those who have suffered through no fault of their own. Many times incapable of influencing change. Us westerners don’t know how blessed we are.

A compelling mixture of tales so similar yet so so diverse.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is an interesting subject but the recording appears to have been made on a pirate radio station in about 1965. Terrible.

Was this recorded in medium wave?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews