The Merits of Wrong

I just want to second Matt's recommendation of Michela Wrong's In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo. There are a few different books out there, of varying ponderousness, charting the Congo's sad and occluded history. Wrong writes with a snappy and succinct verve that never overwhelms the gravity of her subject matter. Plus she structures the book around a series of cool quotes, like the Kasaian proverb that runs "It's when it's raining that you can pee your pants with a quiet mind."

Also, Matt's right that the Americans involved in this story aren't very well acquitted, but in the heinousness category the Europeans are all too often in a class of their own.