RaveThe Washington PostThe narrative is supplemented by a deep exploration of the war-torn, strife-filled and tragic history of the region, which the Western world robbed of millions of men, women and children during the centuries of the slave trade — and continues exploiting for its diamonds, palm oil and rubber ... The result is a 500-page cry of anger at the centuries of shocking abuse and the hypocrisy of emerging democracies in the United States, Britain and France that valued liberté, egalité and fraternité, except when it came to enslaved Blacks — and that, after the independence movement of the 1950s and 1960s, did next to nothing to aid their former colonies when civil war left thousands dead and millions more displaced.
