| Author: | Karl Maier |
| Isbn: | 9781909150232 |
| Publisher: | Serif |
| Pub Date: | 1996 |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | History |
| Followed By: | This House Has Fallen (2000) |
Angola: Promises and Lies is a book written by Karl Maier and was published in 1996 by Serif. It tells the story and events that follows the Angolan civil war.
The book non-fictitiously portrays the story of a country where the government led by People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola and supported by Communist powers in the Soviet Union and Cuba signed a peaceful agreement with National Union for the Total Independence of Angola in 1992.
The agreement led to the country's pioneer free elections under the authority of the United Nations. The observation drew a notable image of Angola as a rich oil manufacturing country, natural resources and mostly show being a democratic African country. Although the MPLA won the free elections, Jonas Savimbi was yet unwilling to accept the results. He called the election fake and falsified. The United Nations tried to sort out with Savimbi, who had refused thereby causing further war and anarchy in the country for the next twenty years.
An American historian, David Birmingham wrote in a review for African Affairs stating, "...The Angolan election was an unparalleled feat of democratic logistics, Its sequel however, was a war more savage, more destructive, more inhuman, than all the colonial wars, wars of intervention, and wars by proxy that had gone before."[1] Publishers Weekly called it "...an [engrossing chronological account] of the war."[2] Times Literary Supplement described Maier as "...One who shows highly memorable vignettes how ordinary people have been affected by a war."[3] Booklist also reviewed the book.[4]