Having received a few requests recently for books on Rwanda & the genocide, I thought I’d list those that I’ve found most valuable in understanding the peri-genocidal state. (I’ve since updated this post several times since publication, most recently in June 2015.)
- Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom, by Jan Vansina. A must-read for understanding the political, economic, and social organization of pre-colonial Rwanda, and the harmful way that colonialism interacted with the extant social identities of “Hutu” and “Tutsi.” Alison Des Forges’ Defeat is the Only Bad News: Rwanda Under Musinga, 1986 – 1931 and Catherine Newbury’s The Cohesion of Oppression: Clientship and Ethnicity in Rwanda, 1960 – 1960 cover the same period, although I haven’t read either yet.
- The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide, by Gerard Prunier. The most comprehensive history of the genocide that I’ve yet read. Prunier is a formidable researcher, and he covers the period from independence up to the late 1990s in considerable detail and from a cogent analytical perspective. His later research caused him to question this book’s favorable portrayals of Paul Kagame during several internal RPF struggles which took place during the 1990 – 1994 civil war, but I don’t think that detracts from the insight of the vast majority of analysis here. Mahmood Mamdani’s When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda provides a similar look at the historical roots of the genocide.
- The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda, by Scott Straus. Straus does incredible work investigating the microdynamics of the genocide, with specific attention to the way in which the national-level order to commit genocide was transmitted through various levels of political machinery, and actualized in killing at the local level. This book should put to rest once and for all the misconception that the genocide was an unpremeditated outburst of “ancient tribal hatreds.” Lee Ann Fuji’s Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda, which I haven’t read yet, looks like another excellent work on the genocide’s microdynamics.
- Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak, and The Antelope’s Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide, by Jean Hatzfeld. Hatzfeld is a French journalist who conducted extensive interviews with genocide perpetrators and victims in the mid-1990s (for Machete and Life), and then again in the early 2000s (Antelope). Machete and Life offer an incomparable view into the human side of the local-level political violence that Straus documented in Order, whilst Antelope is a sobering reminder that the wounds of the genocide are still very much open for most Rwandans. Essential reading.
- Remaking Rwanda: State-Building and Human Rights After Mass Violence, edited by Scott Straus & Lars Waldorf. Published in 2011, this essay collection offers a fascinating look into social policy and domestic politics 15 years after the genocide. Susan Thomson’s Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in Postgenocide Rwanda and Jeannie Burnet’s Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory, and Silence in Rwanda cover the same period with a focus on the lived experience of ordinary people. They’re very good works of anthropology, worth a read even if you’re already familiar with the broad outlines of Rwandan society today. Marc Sommers seems to cover similar territory in Stuck: Rwandan Youth and the Struggle for Adulthood, but I haven’t read this yet.
What else would you recommend? (Update: see the comments for some additional recommendations!)
I would also recommend my book In the Aftermath of Genocide – the U.S. role in Rwanda for an inside view of what the US govt knew and did. R. Gribbin
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Thanks for the suggestion!
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Eric Kamba suggests you to read the following essay:
What Really Happened in Rwanda?
Researchers Christian Davenport and Allan C. Stam say
The accepted story of the mass killings of 1994 is incomplete. The full truth – inconvenient as it may be to the Rwandan government – needs to come out.
http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/what-really-happened-in-rwanda-3432/
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Also, what Cyrus said. There’s no definitive history of the Great Lakes, and you have to read it all to understand the interpretive divide. Chretien’s thousand-year history of the region is a long, long, long, long way to familiarize yourself with his side of things. :)
If you’re really up for some historiographical imagination, go to the LOC and read the two volumes of Alexis Kagame’s history of Rwanda. It’s not all factual, but it’s absolutely fascinating and is a great window into how Tutsis of his era viewed themselves and their place in the region.
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Hey, Rachel, sorry to be late in answering this, but I third (fourth?) the Catharine Newbury recommendation. It’s helpful to read her alongside David Newbury’s Kings and Clans on the Kivus as the history of Rwanda and that part of Congo are inseparable. As are the Newburys, which is why both books are so great. :)
David Newbury just edited Alison Des Forges’ dissertation and it is out and reasonably priced. Just got my copy on Monday – will let you know if it’s worth your time.
Strauss’ Order of Genocide is great for understanding the microdynamics of violence and why people chose to engage in it. One thing that’s missing out there is a study of the bigger picture. Alan Kuperman is working on a book on this – he’s trying to look at the question of why did the Hutu extremists see genocide as the best way to achieve their political goals? His book, the Limits of Humanitarian Intervention, is helpful for understanding what would have (and would not have) been possible had the international community done something about the crisis.
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Excellent, thanks for the recommendations!
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I first suggest the three Hatzfeld books. Second, Phil Clark has written a book about the Gacaca, just published. The product of years of research IN Rwanda and over 500 interviews THERE he has taken the time and made the effort to try to get to the bottom of things.
As for Remaking Rwanda, well readers will have to consider in respect of the various contributors whether s/he in each case has explained that they are in a position to comment authoritatively e.g. when were they last in Rwanda?
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http://theremakingrwanda.blogspot.com/
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very interresting blog
http://theremakingrwanda.blogspot.com/
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Thanks for the recommendations, all!
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The path of a genocide by Adelman&Suhrke (editors) and The shallow graves of Rwanda by Shaharyar Khan who was the SRSG during unamir II.
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I recommend “God Sleeps in Rwanda” by Joseph Sebarenzi and “Hope for Rwanda” by Andre Sibomana. Nice to get a perspective from Rwandans, who have a deeper personal connection to the history.
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Hey Rachel, good list. I have to recommend the Order of Genocide by Scott Straus. It’s the only book I’ve read that goes beyond what was going on in Kigali with the politicians and the diplomats and actually asks the genocidaires, “why did you do this?” The answers are very surprising for casual observers of Rwanda, but not at all surprising if you’ve lived there. It seems to be less about hatred, and more about local level coercion. At least for the people with the machetes… Also, I think I have your copy of “Antecedents to Modern Rwanda”. I can’t finish it. It puts me to sleep.
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1 on Newbury. Also it is very important to familiarize oneself with the debates between, e.g. Reyntjens, Lemarchand, and their students on one side, and Chretien and his students on the other. Much of the work is in French. Looking at their work allows one to appreciate how intensely contested is Rwandan and broader Great Lakes historiography. No one owns the truth. Mamdani’s book was important in it’s analysis of the ’62 refugees in Uganda from which the RPF arose.
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Catherine Newbury, Cohesion & Oppression. Absolutely essential. Troubled by Hatzfeld’s third book, but it should be read. Scott Straus, “Order of Genocide” (or “order and genocide?”), dense but necessary.
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Shake Hands with the Devil by Dallaire if you want an account of the genocide from the UN Commander.
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