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BOOK REVIEWS 257 continental organization is a success that both writers fail to credit. Ungar, for instance, dismisses the oau outright, believing that its history is a "tale of empty rhetoric, . . . unwillingness to deal with crises, and a failure to address the important issues concerning Africa's future." Having documented the human-rights abuses of a wide range ofAfrican regimes, Lamb likewise accuses the oau of failing to address human-rights questions, implying that it should serve as a continental policeman. Further, Lamb's prescription for the rejuvenation ofAfrican unity by strengthening the oau secretariat deserves little but contempt. Indeed, the precarious nature of African unity is largely attributable to the subterranean forces in African politics, forces which, ironically, both authors attempt to underscore. This problem of logical inconsistency in The Africans is exacerbated by Lamb's tendency to belabor certain issues. For example, he gives too much attention to the issue of insecurity in African leadership. A simple historical account of the social forces that cause political instability, with emphasis on the failures of national integration, would be sufficient to explain the precariousness of the African presidency. Moreover, Lamb's claim that the insecurity of African leaders derives from the lack of a traditional system of government able to contain Africa's social forces is immediately contradicted by his equally simplistic assertion that Africans are "historically democratic, choosing their village chiefs and clan elders by varying forms of consensus." Consider also Lamb's dual-faceted prescription for Uganda's stability. First, he argues that Uganda will never forge meaningful nationhood until the Ugandans themselves "are given control of their national destiny." But shortly thereafter he states that stability can be assured in Uganda only after a foreign peacekeeping force has disarmed the Ugandan army, supervised fair elections, and so on. These contradictory positions hardly enhance one's understanding of the dynamics of political decay in Uganda. In a third instance Lamb proposes that Africa needs to develop an African political system combining elements of socialism and capitalism. Yet Lamb dismisses various experiments with socialism as monumental failures that should serve as a lesson to independent Africa. In my view, while the experiments with African socialism have led to economic problems, their political dimension certainly deserves serious attention, since, as the Tanzanian example clearly shows, these efforts have led to progress in the creation of viable institutions. The Africans and Africa attempt primarily to expose an American lay audience to the realities of past and present Africa. For this audience the authors' expository style and informational emphasis is clearly appropriate. However, for the serious reader interested not only in facts but also in rigor and probity of analysis, the books are of marginal value. Of the two, Ungar is the more successful at combining exposition with analysis. Vengeance: India after the Assassination ofIndira Gandhi. By Pranay Gupte. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1985. pp. 368. Reviewed by Brewer S. Stone, M.A. candidate, SAIS. Three themes dominate Pranay Gupte's timely book about India: communal violence, the legacy of Indira Gandhi (both mainly discussed in Part I), and the views of Indians on current issues (Part II). Although the book raises many useful questions, it is biased in its treatment of all these themes. 258 SAIS REVIEW Part I of the book, entitled "The News," provides a detailed and sometimes moving account of the events surrounding Indira Gandhi's assassination. Gupte engages the reader with captivating pieces of investigative reporting, noting, for instance, the evidence supporting accusations of extensive, underhanded involvement of Congress Party officials in exacerbating the communal violence that followed Indira's death, and the often exploitative nature of Rajiv Gandhi's 1984 campaign. Yet his treatment of Mrs. Gandhi is unnecessarily harsh, especially considering that she was largely responsible for laying the groundwork for many of the economic reforms about which he is so enthusiastic in Part II. More seriously, his portrayal of the communal violence is regrettably one-sided. Focusing on the periodjust after the assassination, the author makes the Hindus look like the villains and the Sikhs, the victims. Earlier and subsequent Sikh atrocities go unmentioned. Part II seems largely concerned to depict Rajiv's...

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