John Kent is Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics.
'Anglophone historians in the last two decades have done little to place the crises that beset the Democratic Republic of Congo between independence in 1960 and 1964 in the contexts of Cold War diplomatic history. This new book is an important corrective to this negligence. By using US and British diplomatic archives that were closed to researchers in the 1960s, Kent (international relations, London School of Economics) uncovers the extremely complex negotiations between various Congolese actors, US officials, the UN, and the divided Belgian political establishment. [...] An excellent book on African decolonization, the Congo, and 1960s Cold War diplomatic history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.'a--aJ. M. Rich, Middle Tennessee State University