Overview

How Africa's most notorious tyrant made his oppressive regime seem both necessary and patriotic Idi Amin ruled Uganda between 1971 and 1979, inflicting tremendous violence on the people of the country. How did Amin's regime survive for eight calamitous years? Drawing on recently uncovered archival material, Derek Peterson reconstructs the political logic of the era, focusing on the ordinary people—civil servants, curators and artists, businesspeople, patriots—who invested their energy and resources in making the government work. Peterson reveals how Amin (1928–2003) led ordinary people to see themselves as front-line soldiers in a global war against imperialism and colonial oppression. They worked tirelessly to ensure that government institutions kept functioning, even as resources dried up and political violence became pervasive. In this case study of how principled, talented, and patriotic people sacrificed themselves in service to a dictator, Peterson provides lessons for our own time.

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9780300278385

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Reviews

“Derek Peterson does it again, taking a topic we thought we knew—Amin’s dictatorship—and making us see it anew. Using provincial archives that he and his team saved from damp, insects, and mold, he tells a riveting tale of how clerks, curators, radio personnel, artists, priests, and teachers strove to make Amin’s government work. They were not the torturers and interrogators, of which there were many, but provincial patriots inspired by Amin’s anti-colonial message.”—Isabel Hofmeyr, author of Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House “This book is the impressive outcome of dogged and granular archival work over many years. Peterson has made a welcome—and timely—contribution to our understanding of this most complex period in Uganda’s modern history.”—Richard Reid, author of A History of Modern Uganda “Peterson sheds light on the popular foundations of the flamboyant Idi Amin’s violent rule. Carefully researched, this book provides remarkable insights into how and why Amin inspired and mobilized ordinary Ugandans, with important lessons for understanding the appeals of contemporary demagogues. It contributes to a more nuanced perspective on this important and controversial figure.”—William Reno, author of Warlord Politics and African States “How did Idi Amin’s regime survive? Peterson shows how many people in Uganda were earnestly committed to what they saw as a project of liberation—despite the appalling atrocities of the time. This book is a thoughtful and timely account of the ability of demagogues to mobilize popular support.”—Justin Willis, coauthor of The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa: Democracy, Voting and Virtue “Do cartoonish political figures deserve revisions? Can anything be gained by looking for the worthy in the grotesque? This is a fearsome question for the twenty-first century but is one Derek Peterson meets head on with great skill and compassion. His book about Idi Amin—the postcolonial epitome of western ideas about Africa savagery—is not a rehabilitation but a literal relocation, situating Amin in the places and populations in both the global spaces of Pan-Africanism and Uganda to which he gave a new and aggressive voice.”—Luise White, author of Unpopular Sovereignty: Rhodesian Independence and African Decolonization

Author Information

Derek Peterson is the Ali Mazrui Professor of History and African Studies at the University of Michigan. His books include Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent and The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin. He lives in Ann Arbor, MI.

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