Recommended Reading
Despite being so isolated, the future and fate of the Lake Tanganyika Basin could not be more connected to the rest of the world. Rich in natural resources like oil and minerals and a place of enormous environmental importance because it contains one fifth of the world’s fresh water, the lake exists at the nexus of several global struggles. Check out some of the titles below to learn more.
Congo and the Great Lakes
The Trouble with the Congo by Séverine Autesserre
Blood River by Tim Butcher
Consuming the Congo: War and Conflict Minerals in the World’s Deadliest Place by Peter Eichstaedt
The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair by Michael Deibert
The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa by René Lemarchand
Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe by Gerard Prunier
Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa’s Deadliest War by Ben Rawlence
The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996-2006 by Filip Reyntjens
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Jason Stearns
In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz by Michela Wrong
Historical
The Lake Regions of Central Africa: Volume 1 by Sir Richard Burton
Mimi and Toutou’s Big Adventure by Giles Foden
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
The State of Africa by Martin Meredith
The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja
Congo: The Epic History of a People by David Van Reybrouck
Aid and Development
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo
Understanding Poverty edited by Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Roland Benabou and Dilip Mookherjee
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier
The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor by William Easterly
Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It by Morten Jerven
Smart Aid For African Development edited by Richard Joseph and Alexandra Gillies
More Than Good Intentions: Improving the Ways the World’s Poor Borrow, Save, Farm, Learn, and Stay Healthy by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel
Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo
The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty by Nina Munk
The Crisis Caravan by Linda Polman (UK edition: War Games: The Story of Aid and War in Modern Times)
Aid on the Edge of Chaos: Rethinking International Cooperation in a Complex World by Ben Ramalingam
The Politics of Aid edited by Lindsay Whitfield
China and Africa
The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa by Deborah Brautigam
African Perspectives on China and Africa edited by Firoze Manji and Stephen Marks
Winner Take All: China’s Race for Resources and What it Means for the World by Dambisa Moyo
China into Africa by Robert I. Rotberg
China and Africa: A Century of Engagement by David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman
The Devouring Dragon: How China’s Rise Threatens Our Natural World by Craig Simons
Natural Resources
Oil Wealth in Central Africa: Policies for Inclusive Growth by Bernardin Akitoby and Sharmini Coorey
The Burning Question: We Can’t Burn Half the World’s Oil, Coal, and Gas. So How Do We Quit? by Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark
The Atlas of Water, Second Edition: Mapping the World’s Most Critical Resource by Maggie Black, Jannet King, Candida Lacey
Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis by Brahma Chellaney
The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman
The Politics of Water in Africa: Norms, Environmental Regions and Transboundary Cooperation in the Orange-Senqu and Nile Rivers by Inga M. Jacobs
When the Rivers Run Dry: Water–The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century Paperback by Fred Pearce
The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century by Alex Prud’homme
Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil Paperback by Robert Rapier
The Oil Curse by Michael L. Ross
Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon
The Scramble for African Oil: Oppression, Corruption and War for Control of Africa’s Natural Resources by Douglas A. Yates
Tropical Diseases
The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear by Seth Mnookin
Lifeblood: How to Change the World One Dead Mosquito at a Time by Alex Perry
No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses by Peter Piot
The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years by Sonia Shah
Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It by Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin
The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age by Nathan Wolfe
Fiction and Human Interest
The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley
Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder
The Benevolent American in the Heart of Darkness by Albert Russo
