Since 2001, the Gacaca community courts have been the centrepiece of Rwanda's justice and reconciliation programme. Nearly every adult Rwandan has participated in the trials, principally by providing eyewitness testimony concerning genocide crimes. Lawyers are banned from any official involvement, an issue that has generated sustained criticism from human rights organisations and international scepticism regarding Gacaca's efficacy. Drawing on more than six years of fieldwork in Rwanda and...

Nineteen original horror stories exploring ancient sites, uncovering forgotten histories and prising open the tombs of the past, from award-winning authors and editors Dan Coxon and Philip Fracassi.Unearthed digs beneath these crumbling structures to reveal their archaic pasts, and their darkest secrets. Featuring the best modern writers of horror and dark fantasy, these stories explore the caverns and the catacombs, the ruined temples and the monoliths – and drag an ancient evil b...

For over four decades the story of the extraordinary evil that occurred at the Kincora Boys’ Home in East Belfast in the 1970s and the shocking attempts by MI5 to cover it up have haunted our political and social terrain for decades. Award-winning former BBC journalist Chris Moore has been working on the story since it first emerged in 1980, and has uncovered a horrific catalogue of failed opportunities to put an end to the sadistic activities of the men who were running the home, in parti...

A beautiful story following two troubled men, separated by nearly a century, bound by the ghosts of their pastWhen George Allenby is put in charge of building a lake in the grounds of an imposing Irish manor house, he intends to do the job as swiftly as possible and return to Belfast. Allenby is still wrestling with his time as an officer during the First World War, burdened by the many things he could have done differently.Almost a century later, Alex and Ellie are preparing...

The perfect book for motor enthusiasts, thrill seekers and anyone who loves a good yarn.‘Fear and I started our long relationship at a very early age, and every time we met, I think we worked together to thicken my skin a little.’As a veteran of the famous (some would say infamous) Targa Tasmania Rally, Philip Blake has had plenty of brushes with death, but even the bravest and most foolhardy of rev-heads would be shocked by his record.In short, Philip Blake should ...

“The laws of Smoke are complex. Not every lie will trigger it. A fleeting thought of evil may pass unseen; a fib, an excuse, a piece of flattery. Next thing you know its smell is in your nose. There is no more hateful smell in the world than the smell of Smoke.”England. A century ago, give or take a few years.An England where people who are wicked in thought or deed are marked by the Smoke that pours forth from their bodies, a sign of their fallen ...

Africa is playing a more important role in world affairs than ever before. Yet the most common images of Africa in the American mind are ones of poverty, starvation, and violent conflict. But while these problems are real, that does not mean that Africa is a lost cause. Instead, as Stephen Ellis explains in Season of Rains, we need to rethink Africa’s place in time if we are to understand it in all its complexity—it is a region where growth and prosperity coexist with failed state...

Burundi has recently emerged from twelve years of devastating civil war. Its economy has been destroyed and hundreds and thousands of people have been killed. In this book, the voices of ordinary Burundians are heard for the first time.Farmers, artisans, traders, mothers, soldiers and students talk about the past and the future, war and peace, their hopes for a better life and their relationships with each other and the state. Young men, in particular, often seen as the cause of vi...

The question usually asked about Africa is: 'why is it going wrong?' Is the continent still suffering from the ravages of colonialism? Or is it the victim of postcolonial economic exploitation, poor governance and lack of aid? Whatever the answer, increasingly the result is poverty and violence.In Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling Patrick Chabal approaches this question differently by reconsidering the role of theory in African politics. Chabal discusses the limitations...

The path towards democracy in Kenya has been long and often tortuous. Though it has been trumpeted as a goal for decades, democratic government has never been fully realised, largely as a result of the authoritarian excesses of the Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki regimes.This uniquely comprehensive study of Kenya's political trajectory shows how the struggle for democracy has been waged in civil society, through opposition parties, and amongst traditionally marginalised groups like women ...

This book analyses the rapidly increasing role of African states, leaders and other political actors in international politics in the 21st Century.In contrast to the conventional approach of studying how external actors impacted on Africa’s international relations, this book seeks to open up a new approach, focusing on the impact of African political actors on international politics. It does this by analysing African agency – the degree to which African political actors have room t...

In 2007 a disputed election in Kenya erupted into a two-month political crisis that led to the deaths of more than a thousand people and the displacement of almost seven hundred thousand. Much of the violence fell along ethnic lines, the principal perpetrators of which were the Kalenjin, who lashed out at other communities in the Rift Valley. What makes this episode remarkable compared to many other instances of ethnic violence is that the Kalenjin community is a recent construct: the grou...