I’ve just had this essay published in the Dublin Review of Books:

Not so dark. Africa without clichés. A review of ‘Africa’, by Richard Dowden

‘Here is Dowden’s description of Angola at the height of the civil war, in the 1980s: “a marxist regime armed by the Soviet Union and protected by Cuban troops is kept going by revenues from oil extracted by American oil companies whose operations are being attacked by American-backed socialist rebels”. This was history as tragedy and farce at the same time…’ Read more