A Thousand Hills, Stephen Kinzer
A Thousand Hills, Stephen Kinzer
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A Thousand Hills
Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It

Author: Stephen Kinzer

Narrator: Paul Boehmer

Unabridged: 12 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/21/2008


Synopsis

Paul Kagame grew up as a wretched refugee. He and a group of comrades, determined to force their way back home after a generation of exile, designed one of the most audacious covert operations in the history of clandestine war. Then, after taking power, they amazed the world by stabilizing and reviving their devastated country. Now, as President Kagame, he's obsessed with a single outlandish dream: to make Rwanda the first middle-income country in Africa, and to do it in the space of a single generation.

A Thousand Hills tells Kagame's tumultuous life story, including his early fascination with Che Guevara and James Bond, his years as an intelligence agent, his training in Cuba and the United States, the dazzlingly original way he built his secret rebel army, his bloody rebellion, and his outsized ambitions for Rwanda. It is the adventure-filled tale of a visionary who won a war, stopped a genocide, and then set out to turn his country into the star of Africa. Like Ishmael Beah's bestselling A Long Way Gone and Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, this book recounts the thrilling and uplifting tale of a man who defied the odds to lift himself and his country out of misery toward a more promising future.

About Stephen Kinzer

Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries on five continents. During the 1980s he covered revolution and social upheaval in Central America. In 1990 he was named chief of the Times bureau in Berlin and spent the next six years covering the emergence of post-Communist Europe. Later, Kinzer became the first Times bureau chief in Istanbul. He is coauthor of Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala and the author of Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua; Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds; and Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill on July 30, 2009

I saw Stephen Kinzer talk a couple of times at my school. He was really interesting. I came across his latest book in my school library, and decided to read it. The way that he writes is very easy to understand, and the story kept me interested. I understand that Mr. Kinzer spent many hours with Pau......more

Goodreads review by Stefanie on March 31, 2023

The Rwanda Genocide occurred from April to July of 1994. Around half a million people (possibly more) identifying as Tutsi (as well as some Twa and Hutu that were sympathetic) were murdered by Hutu militias. There were also a lot who were injured horrifically from machete attacks that were meant to......more

Goodreads review by Bella on August 05, 2023

Final Rwanda read, ok clearly this author is bias towards Kagame because I guess I would be too if I wrote a book about someone who is known to make dissidents disappear. Other than that, this book was really great and informative about not only Kagame, but also the RPF and Tutsi mistreatment before......more

Goodreads review by Katelyn on June 12, 2017

A highly readable and engaging account of Rwanda's political turmoil and improbable success in the past 50 years, with extensive quotes from Paul Kagame serving to frame the historical account.......more