Remaking Rwanda: state building and human rights after mass violence ed. by Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf (review)

Abstract

nations. These chapters thus address key concerns of the volume in unpacking the detailed mechanics of Asian economic interaction with Sudan and stressing the importance of the past in conditioning these relations. The key endeavour (to which the authors are attuned, if not engaged, here) is to marry such discussion with a more assiduously fine-grained look at the potency of elite Sudanese agency and its local consequences in Asian encounters. In this sense, the chapter on China, Khartoum and the political economy of dam construction is particularly powerful. Many of the themes, theoretical underpinnings and some of the content may be familiar to those who have read the editors’ existing work. But there also is much genuine originality that speaks to policy makers, activists and academics alike. This is an important and worthy book. The depth of detail in the case studies provides a benchmark for those who recognize the imperative to push the Asia– Africa field firmly into the analytical crucible of specific African context and contemporary historical imagination. It should have a place on every Africanist bookshelf.