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peebee's review against another edition
3.0
Pretty good, although for some reason, and not just this author specifically, journalists always feel the need to recap who everyone is and what their role is every time they get mentioned in a new chapter. I'm not sure if the book is based off several independent reports he filed or what, but it seems a little hand holdy and condescending, not too mention pads the book out.
maria_ruth_jones's review
4.0
I had only the vaguest recollection of some sort of coup attempt involving Mark Thatcher in the early 2000s before i stumbled upon this in a used bookshop. great reporting by The Economist's Africa correspondent. fascinating look at mercenary subculture in southern Africa. i found myself thinking often, really, this was just 13 years ago?? it's the kind of elite-british-men-behaving-badly story that i think of as a generation removed. but seems that was naive optimism.
peebee's review
3.0
Pretty good, although for some reason, and not just this author specifically, journalists always feel the need to recap who everyone is and what their role is every time they get mentioned in a new chapter. I'm not sure if the book is based off several independent reports he filed or what, but it seems a little hand holdy and condescending, not too mention pads the book out.
tony's review
2.0
[a:Frederick Forsyth|36714|Frederick Forsyth|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1224097067p2/36714.jpg]'s [b:The Dogs of War|460717|The Dogs of War|Frederick Forsyth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348845549s/460717.jpg|1947264] details an attempt to overthrow the government of a small African country — in the book called Zangaro, but well known to be Equatorial Guinea. And when I say “details”, I mean sets out in painstaking detail just how exactly such a thing could happen. And when I say “could happen”, I mean has been attempted. Twice.
The first time was the attempted coup in 1973 that mirrored the book in almost every way — other than in its failure — and of which Forsyth himself was almost certainly both the lead funder, and strategic mastermind. At the time the country was very poor and very repressive, and their goal was to replace its deranged dictator with the Biafran leader, Ojukwu.
By the second attempt, in 2004, the country’s fortunes had improved significantly, having discovered substantial quantities of oil. It had grown to become the third largest oil producer in Africa, enabling it to have held the position of the world's fastest growing economy for a decade. But it was still very repressive, the previous deranged dictator having been replaced by another, just as deranged (with a reputation for eating the testicles and brains of his erstwhile political opponents), and much of the country’s incoming money was swiftly finding its way straight back out again into his overseas bank-accounts, leaving the country’s citizens still amongst the poorest in the world.
This time the plot was led by Simon Mann, previously a British SAS officer, who had operated a multi-million-dollar mercenary operation across multiple African countries during the 1990s. Assisting him in at least some way (the exact details are still disputed) was Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. This, along with the involvement of a "J. H. Archer", generally taken to be disgraced British politician (and best selling author, including of a story called [b:The Coup|78981|The Collected Short Stories|Jeffrey Archer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170963561s/78981.jpg|76262]) [a:Jeffrey Archer|4820|Jeffrey Archer|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1208462800p2/4820.jpg], helped ensure that of the ten attempted coups worldwide in 2004, this was the one that kept everyone’s attention.
Luckily for the author of this book, it’s also the one with the most supporting documentation, including not just contracts between many of the significant figures, but also lots of the plans for what to do after the coup — the group wisely noting that gaining power might be hard enough, but keeping it would be harder still, as the 2003 “successful" coup in São Tomé, that had lasted barely a week, had shown.
Unluckily for us, however, the author of this book seems to have been the wrong person to tie it all together for us. There’s a fascinating story here, but it’s buried in a massive chronological info-dump with virtually no sense of narrative or plotting. The epilogue and postscript start to raise some interesting questions about the mismanagement of resource-rich countries, and the role of mercenaries throughout Africa, and even sets this coup up as an explicit counter-argument to [a:Paul Collier|137237|Paul Collier|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1380904822p2/137237.jpg]'s suggestion (in [b:The Bottom Billion|493371|The Bottom Billion Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It|Paul Collier|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394050304s/493371.jpg|481548]) that dictators should sometimes be removed forcibly. Robert’s argument here that coups are never a good idea is somewhat odd, as he expresses dismay several times during the book that the 1973 “Forsyth” coup had failed. But either way, this end-of-book philosophising comes too little, too late to salvage what should really have been a much more interesting tale.
The first time was the attempted coup in 1973 that mirrored the book in almost every way — other than in its failure — and of which Forsyth himself was almost certainly both the lead funder, and strategic mastermind. At the time the country was very poor and very repressive, and their goal was to replace its deranged dictator with the Biafran leader, Ojukwu.
By the second attempt, in 2004, the country’s fortunes had improved significantly, having discovered substantial quantities of oil. It had grown to become the third largest oil producer in Africa, enabling it to have held the position of the world's fastest growing economy for a decade. But it was still very repressive, the previous deranged dictator having been replaced by another, just as deranged (with a reputation for eating the testicles and brains of his erstwhile political opponents), and much of the country’s incoming money was swiftly finding its way straight back out again into his overseas bank-accounts, leaving the country’s citizens still amongst the poorest in the world.
This time the plot was led by Simon Mann, previously a British SAS officer, who had operated a multi-million-dollar mercenary operation across multiple African countries during the 1990s. Assisting him in at least some way (the exact details are still disputed) was Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. This, along with the involvement of a "J. H. Archer", generally taken to be disgraced British politician (and best selling author, including of a story called [b:The Coup|78981|The Collected Short Stories|Jeffrey Archer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170963561s/78981.jpg|76262]) [a:Jeffrey Archer|4820|Jeffrey Archer|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1208462800p2/4820.jpg], helped ensure that of the ten attempted coups worldwide in 2004, this was the one that kept everyone’s attention.
Luckily for the author of this book, it’s also the one with the most supporting documentation, including not just contracts between many of the significant figures, but also lots of the plans for what to do after the coup — the group wisely noting that gaining power might be hard enough, but keeping it would be harder still, as the 2003 “successful" coup in São Tomé, that had lasted barely a week, had shown.
Unluckily for us, however, the author of this book seems to have been the wrong person to tie it all together for us. There’s a fascinating story here, but it’s buried in a massive chronological info-dump with virtually no sense of narrative or plotting. The epilogue and postscript start to raise some interesting questions about the mismanagement of resource-rich countries, and the role of mercenaries throughout Africa, and even sets this coup up as an explicit counter-argument to [a:Paul Collier|137237|Paul Collier|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1380904822p2/137237.jpg]'s suggestion (in [b:The Bottom Billion|493371|The Bottom Billion Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It|Paul Collier|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394050304s/493371.jpg|481548]) that dictators should sometimes be removed forcibly. Robert’s argument here that coups are never a good idea is somewhat odd, as he expresses dismay several times during the book that the 1973 “Forsyth” coup had failed. But either way, this end-of-book philosophising comes too little, too late to salvage what should really have been a much more interesting tale.
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