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I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation
 
 
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I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation [Paperback]

Michela Wrong (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
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I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation + In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo + It's Our Turn to Eat
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Product details

  • Paperback: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Harper Perennial (4 July 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007150954
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007150953
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 41,790 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Michela Wrong
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Product Description

Review

Praise for I Didn’t Do It For You:

‘Contemporary history on the grand scale. I was entertained, informed and angered. Wrong has given us another essential contribution to the post-colonial scramble for Africa.’ John le Carre

‘Vivid, penetrating, wonderfully detailed. Michela Wrong has written the biography of a nation and more – she has excavated the very heart and soul of the Eritrean people and their country.' Aminatta Forna

‘If you thought Eritrea was some exotic flower you heard mentioned on a gardening programme this book will tell you something different. It tells the tale of a small group of Africans so despised and trampled by successive foreign occupations that they fought back and after 30 years of war, they became a nation. It is an astounding story packed with tales of the worst – and the best – of human behaviour.’ Richard Dowden, President of the Royal African Society

'This is a wonderful, readable and illuminating book. Michela Wrong is an enormously talented writer…thoroughly researched and deeply engaging and honest.' Clare Short – New Statesman

'Impressive … Wrong offers an uplifting testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Eminently readable and full of fascinating detail, this is a book that deserves and needs to be read' Guardian

'[A] corker … fascinating and tragic. Wrong's writing flows so smoothly that it is only after 100 pages or so that you notice how much legwork she has put in [and] she tracks down a startling array of characters' Daily Telegraph

'A lyrical, intensely intelligent and wonderfully readable history of Eritrea … beautifully written' Independent

Review

Praise for I Didn't Do It For You: 'Contemporary history on the grand scale. I was entertained, informed and angered. Wrong has given us another essential contribution to the post-colonial scramble for Africa.' John le Carre 'Vivid, penetrating, wonderfully detailed. Michela Wrong has written the biography of a nation and more -- she has excavated the very heart and soul of the Eritrean people and their country.' Aminatta Forna 'If you thought Eritrea was some exotic flower you heard mentioned on a gardening programme this book will tell you something different. It tells the tale of a small group of Africans so despised and trampled by successive foreign occupations that they fought back and after 30 years of war, they became a nation. It is an astounding story packed with tales of the worst -- and the best -- of human behaviour.' Richard Dowden, President of the Royal African Society 'This is a wonderful, readable and illuminating book. Michela Wrong is an enormously talented writer!thoroughly researched and deeply engaging and honest.' Clare Short -- New Statesman 'Impressive ! Wrong offers an uplifting testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Eminently readable and full of fascinating detail, this is a book that deserves and needs to be read' Guardian '[A] corker ! fascinating and tragic. Wrong's writing flows so smoothly that it is only after 100 pages or so that you notice how much legwork she has put in [and] she tracks down a startling array of characters' Daily Telegraph 'A lyrical, intensely intelligent and wonderfully readable history of Eritrea ! beautifully written' Independent
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Michela Wrong's first book, In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz, an account of the Congo's decline, was rightly acclaimed a classic by the Economist. She has triumphed again in her account of Eritrea, a book of many themes and as many virtues: it combines the best of travel writing, biography, history, current affairs, all embraced by a poignant love story, for Ms Wrong fell head over heels for this rugged, beautiful land. Above all, the former journalist who worked for Reuters news agency and reported on Africa for the Financial Times, has produced a fascinating psychological profile of Eritrea, the brave, belligerent and infuriating Horn of Africa state that waged a 30 year guerilla war for independence from Ethiopia. It is a case study of the harm done by colonial rule, and an indictment of the role of Italy, Britain, the US, the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, and a scathing condemnation of the conniving United Nations. But Ms Wrong never lectures us. She combines intellectual rigour with wit and sharp insight as she trawls British government files. And with wonderful flair, she describes the incongruous, such as her account of Eritea's last Italian, living out his remaining days in the Red Sea port of Massawa, spitting out his contempt for family and friends, lashing out at his ducks as he sits surrounded by rusting 'fridges. Equally entertaining is her description - "bugging, blowjobs and beer" - of the exploits of the US servicemen who eavesdropped on much of the world from their listening post at Kagnew, on the outskirts of the Eritrean capital of Asmara. But there are broader concerns that emerge as Ms Wrong sets out the lifestyles of the feckless young US servicemen. The contrast with the heroics of their Eritrean contemporaries, many of whom died in their struggle for independence from Ethiopia, could not be more striking. The Americans had neither cause nor convictions. Their Eritrean contemporaries had both, in huge doses. Alas,like many love stories, there is not a happy ending. Ms Wrong does not try to conceal her distress as she watches Eritrea's decline from inspirational model for Africa into authoritarian state. This splendid book provides a powerful rebuttal of those historians who claim that on balance colonial rule was a good thing; and it should be compulsory reading for British ministers who now urge us to "celebrate" our colonial past. As Ms Wrong warns: "Eritrea should serve as a cautionary tale ... We forget the roles we play in such far-off outposts at our peril".
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40 of 44 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a book full of contradictions, if not just for its content, then for the approach to the subject, namely Eritrea, by Michela Wrong. It is about the journey of Eritrea throughout history - from colonial time to present day. The scars that foreign occupation left on Eritreans - the experience of a people whose nation was betrayed by the world, most notably, by the United Nations. It is a story of a brave and resolute people who, irrespective of all obstacles, abandoned and disparaged, succeeded to realise their destiny. Wrong has put in a great deal of research into exploring the Eritrean colonial experience and its legacy - a good effort indeed.

But when it comes to present day Eritrea, the book's most fatal shortcoming comes to the fore. The discussion of the current Eritrean state of affairs, for the most part, is entirely based on anecdotes and lacks in in-depth analysis. Had Wrong applied the same level of commitment in constructing a well-rounded picture of the struggles of a young nation as that of the colonial period, we would have been talking about a brilliant work. On the contrary however, Wrong seems to have glossed over the most important period of Eritrean history and thereby constructed a very sketchy picture of present day Eritrea.

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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is an extraordinary, many-layered book and I challenge anyone to remain unmoved by its epic tale. I began it ignorant about one of Africa's least known countries, and ended it enraged, inspired ... and much wiser, not only about Eritrea but about the West's grotesque use of African statelets as political footballs.

The book is an impassioned travelogue through landscape, history and politics, with an author at once caustically funny, thoughtful and wry. If you like intelligent travel writing, you will love ms wrong's work, with its vivid landscapes and incisive human portraits. A cast of characters at times Pythonesque move against a back-cloth of tragedy - like the Italian Victor Meldrew, who sits, cursing in his rusting Eritrean scrapyard, or the bored GIs who hold farting competitions and smear their pants with peanut butter to horrify fastidious locals.

Underlying it all is the author's meticulous research, but it is a tribute to her writing that the reader never notices that they are being educated as well as entertained. I finished the book with that feeling of regret that only exceptional works give you.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
As brand new
Must say, the quality of the book i got was amazing.
The book feels like it came straight of the shelves. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Dante
Gus
A very interesting book.
Once I read it I was able to understand why the Eritrean people are
so weary of so called 'foreign aid'.
Published 7 months ago by Gus
An eye opener.......
Just when you thought you knew how things were you are proved to be so very wrong.......that's how I felt reading this book. Read more
Published 9 months ago by RogerC
this book could make you very angry
A history lesson about a small nation which seems to have been abused by every foreign country that it came into contact with, and then when they get some measure of self... Read more
Published 12 months ago by A. Browne
Forgotten corner of Africa brought to life
I like this author. She gives what feels like a believable picture of modern Africa. Inevitably a gloomy one, but she never lets it feel so bad you wouldn't want to visit. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Jenny Arbuthnot
A brilliant eye opener
The only weakness of this book is its title. It refers to a scene during WW II, when British soldiers were busy liberating Eritrea from the Italians. Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2010 by P. A. Doornbos
Another mesmerising Michela Wrong read
Like most people I had only a vague awareness and little interest in Eritrea before reading this book. Read more
Published on 18 Dec 2009 by Dr. David N. Michie
Wonderful and Perspicacious!
I have become interested in African politics for about 18 months now and looking among the hundreds of titles I picked up Wrong's 'In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz' and became... Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2009 by A. Taylor
Beautifully written and researched, but very one-sided
I came to this book having loved "In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz", a fantastic book which veered crazily between the tragic and the hilariously funny in its account of how the... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2008 by C. Cooper
How outsiders devastate Africa.
Funnily enough,my first knowledge of Eritrea's liberation struggle is mentioned in this book-BBC World Service news items on the war between the EPLF and Ethiopia in the... Read more
Published on 25 July 2007 by PygmyTwylyte
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