Sweden Books

The book has a lot of good data. However, it seems as if the author may have rushed to get it into print, as the text wasn't as polished as it could have been.

In the years 1948-50, while researching the Swedish emigrants to the United States, Vilhelm Moberg wrote a number of articles for several Swedish newspapers. This book contains eight of those articles. Chapter one focuses on what the emigrants knew about America and where they learned it. Chapter two focuses on a fascinating journal kept by a nineteenth century Swedish emigrant, a journal that was apparently one of the cornerstones of Moberg's Emigrant series. The third chapter discusses what he found in a Swedish-American cemetery, while the fourth focuses on the Swedish language newspaper Hemlandet. Chapter five looks at the Church in America (he didn't like it much, but he didn't like the Church in Sweden either). Chapter six discusses what Swedes and Swedish-Americans know about either other, while seven gives his impressions on meeting some Swedish-American relatives, and eight is a rather unfocused explanation of how Swedes have fared in their new country.

The final chapter was written some twenty years after the other eight, and has an entirely different mindset. While he previously liked the United States, he now believes the freedom is dying there, and America is doomed to be a source of emigrants, rather than a destination for them. Finally, he expresses his opinion that American intervention in Vietnam will inevitably result in World War 3, waged between the unfree U.S., and the Soviet Union.

I enjoyed the first chapters of this book. Moberg's observations are quite fascinating, and speak quite clearly to me as an American of Swedish descent. Also, if you are a fan of the Emigrant books, then this book makes quite a fascinating addition, giving you great insights into the origin of those books.

The pill in this book is the final chapter. The first chapters and the Emigrant series were written in the 1950s, while the final chapter and A Time On Earth were written in the 1960s. It is obvious that his mindset was quite different by then (he committed suicide in 1973); his writing was rambling, with a decidedly pessimistic overtone.

So, let me recommend that you get and read this book, but that you feel free to skip the last chapter. Overall, I give this book a somewhat qualified recommendation.

Very thorough info on the early ABU line. I learned a lot of things, goes into depth, only wish there was more on the baitcasting line of reels. A lot of the info is in reference to other styles of reels which naturally is good for people collecting different styles. I only had wished that it had covered the 2500 line of reels more in depth. The info on the Record line, early Garcia line of 5000's, etc. is very good.

Wicked Arts is the English translation of Mr. Sörlin's Swedish book, 'Trolldoms- och vidskepseprocessena i Göta hovrätt', published in Umeå, in 1993. Other than a few revisions, the English edition is, for all practical purposes, identical to the Swedish one. The study is based upon an empirical investigation that closely examines 353 cases of reported sorcery and minor magic trials, in the period from 1635 to 1754. The book's empirical findings are challenged throughout by three models of interpretation which, it may be claimed, have been prominent in international witch research during the past few decades: 1) the acculturation model, 2) the conflict model, and 3) the system model. In the preface, Sörlin writes how the book was written in reaction to some aspects of the sorcery studies of the 1980s when acculturation was of central importance. By studying minor witch crimes, in areas not affected by witch scares, this Swedish historian concludes that the prospect of elitism, underscored by a theory of the cultural conquest of rural society, is not rewarding as a model of interpretation. Interest in elitism is prominent, of course, in the southern Swedish cases, too, but there it is more a question of discipline and authority, and has less to do with acculturation, cultivation and assimilation. This study also shows that such cases frequently have nothing to do with crises or conflicts. Sörlin means that the most rewarding approach is to study these sorcery cases on their own terms, or, in other words, as separate phenomena that follow their own logic. The book is set apart by its dialogs and should be read slowly to make sense of all the nuances and interesting ideas.

I didn't find much point to this book. I found the bickering, gossip and ill feelings out of place for a group that is supposed to be worshipping God and having goodwill toward others - especially their own fellow congregants.

THIS BOOK IS BORING AND A COMPLETE WASTE OF MY TIME. CHURCH GOSSIP TAKEN TO THE NTH DEGREE, AND NO REAL ANSWERS - JUST CLOSED MINDED SWEDISH LUTHERAN VILLAGERS - HOW INTERESTING.

This book offers a peek inside small minds in a small church, and while it is true crime, it's also a poignant illustration of how gossip can take over and destroy a community. There was no trial, and the police investigation was bungled, but this author got it right, and the authorities finally admitted she got it right--a year after the book came out. These people all but burned their own "suspect" at the stake.

Christine Ellen Young's "A Bitter Brew" is a highly readable first book. The story is interesting and the analysis of the town's culture and residents is well done. This book is better than probably 75% of the true crime written.
I have two problems with the way the material was presented however. Ms. Young advises us in the forward that she has used aliases for some of the book's characters, and that some of the police dialog, I would presume particularly in the squad room scenes, is made up. I would prefer that when an author uses aliases that she let the reader know which of the names are aliases the first time they are used. This is relatively minor. The fabricated cop talk is very poorly done, to the point that it becomes a laughable and unattractive stereotype. This is unfortunate because the rest of the book is a good piece of work.

Before I finish I would like to briefly address the review of this book by "Tundra Vision" who, along with far too many others, has been uncritically drinking the Ann Rule Kool-Aid. Tundra downgrades Ms. Young for not being Ann Rule. Ann Rule has been a mediocre hack for some years now (see the execrable "Green River, Running Red") and hasn't done anything as good as "A Bitter Brew" in years.

I live in Caribou and know many of the people the author references in this book. This book is more fiction than fact. The majority of her information came from one source in New Sweden when the most of the residents refused to participate. She continually added additional stories and crimes in the area to embellish her story and lengthen her book. It would have been terribly short with the few facts she had. Much of the information she includes is not directly related to the poisoning. Her portrayal of the people of Northern Maine is insulting. I am a southern girl, a Maine implant, so to speak. I adore the people in this area. They are smart, resourceful, faithful, and loyal. Metropolitan areas have the same types of disputes on their street corners. Does it make it more amazing that it happened in such a small town. The people of New Sweden have tried to reconcile and move on with their lives. Most of them do not approve of the information in this book. They feel it is simply "trash". I agree. If you want the real facts, you'll get more on the internet than inside these gossip pages.

This was my 1st Henning Mankell book and I thought it was great!! I couldn't put it down. I like Inspector Wallander's down to earth, everyman kind of approach to life. And this is coupled with a strong policeman's street sense and the natural innate ability to come up with the right conclusions every time. I like how the author often refers to his dead and departed police friend and asks himself how he would see a particular situation. I'm definitely going to buy more of these books.

Henning Mankell is undoubtedly the Agatha Christie of Sweden - a very good, competent author of crime and suspense novels. His writing style is sparse, but very effective, and as a suspense novel, this story will grip you and keep you reading until the last page. At least, it kept me glued to the story to the last page. As a history of the events in the Baltic states, especially Latvia, it is not so convincing. Several grievous errors crop up, and it is quite unbelievable that a policeman, even from a small Skåne town, would be so ignorant of the history and situation in the Baltics. Even in the turbulent times of the 1988-1991 'Singing Revolution', There was no question who the ultimate authority was in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. To pretend that Latvians had any real say-so in their country is not realistic, even by a Swede. It is true that Sweden was practically the only western country to recognize the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union, but it also had a sizeable diaspora of Estonians and Latvians, some of whom moved in fairly high circles of the Swedish government. Any halfway-educated Swede knew the situation across the Baltic Sea. And any Swedish policeman sent to coordinate criminal investigation in the former Soviet Union should, and would have been briefed by the foreign ministry before being allowed to go. So, in reading the book, be enthralled by the mystery, but do not take the history and explanation of the political scene all too seriously.

I am wondering if Mankell spent any time in Latvia doing research for this book. While it is a very good yarn, I question whether Riga was a grim as Mankell describes. I question this because of personal experiences and because in an afterward in the book Mankell pleads "poetic license" for the Riga he portrays.

I was in Moscow in 1978 with a trade group and encountered a group of Latvians at the Moscow airport. They were waiting for their flight home after some sort of meetings in Moscow. They were singing, laughing and joking and had a very in-your-face attitude toward the Soviet officials who were glowering at them. I don't know if they were using the hijinks to annoy the officials or just having a good time. However, the memory of their spirit has stayed with me through the years.

In 2004, my wife and I took a cruise on the Baltic, and one of the ports of call was Tallinn in neighboring Estonia. Tallinn was an attractive and pleasant city. I encountered an Arizona Saloon, which paid homage to John Wayne and his movies; a wedding reception at a McDonald's; and a lot of Finns who had come over on the ferry for the day. It is hard for me to picture that Riga would be in such worse shape. The book was written in the early 90s, but is a decade long enough to rehabilitate the city Mankell portrays.

Somehow, I feel Mankell had this great idea for a story and felt Latvia, Estonia or Lithuanian seemed a logical site. Then, he forced his idea on Riga.

Also, it seemed a bit of a stretch to have Wallander suddenly becoming James Bond.

Though this was the second book in the series, it was the sixth to be translated into English. Unless you lived through the Cold War and the transition time of the early nineties, you will not understand this book. In 1991, two men wash up on the Skane shore of Sweden. They are in a life raft with no ship markings. Both men are well dressed in Western European clothing, and have both been tortured and shot in the heart. Their dental work is Eastern European. So how did they get to Sweden?

When Inspector Wallendar is called in on this case, he has little to go on, and then some one steals the life-raft out of the Police Station. When the men are tracted to Latvia, a Major in their national police force comes to Sweden to help out the inquiry. On the day that he returns to Latvia, he is murdered, and their police request Wallendar's help. From here, the story turns into a thriller and the mystery becomes involved in politics and the changing political situation in the Soviet Union.

The rest of the story needs to be read, not summarized. They is only one weakness in the story and most readers will be able to figure that out. But, I'm curious to see how this 'affair' will effect Wallendar down the road in later novels.

Let me begin by pointing out that I am a huge Henning Mankell fan, although I found this book a bit of disappointment. His writing ability is clear, concise and flows so smoothly he can only compare to Ed McBain who also knew how to tell a story in a simple but extremely effective way. The problem with this story is that so much of it involves foreign intrigue that seems out of place for both the writer and the Wallander, the main character, that I am not surprised that Mankell didn't go back to it. I can't praise this author enough, but I would read any of his other Wallander books before reading this. It's not bad, just a disappointment when you consider what he can do.

Although there were times I enjoyed sections of this book, I was completely disappointed by the ending. Most of the people were depressing and/or depressed. Ekman even managed to make nature depressing. I finished it right to the end, but I would not do it again.

This novel moves from the present to the past and back using a brutal double murder as the crime under consideration. The prose is very descriptive in terms of natural surroundings and densely written reminiscent of the style of Cold Mountain. At times, the story veers off into tangential musings about life, death and like cosmic topics; I did not think these meanderings added much to the story. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to read this book due to the complexity of the plot, the burden of what I believe is a mediocre translation and, ultimately, what to this U.S. reader was unfamiliarity with Swedish/ Norwegian and Lapp culture. I believe that the high praise and awards for this book must largely reflect the taste of readers who read it in its native tongue and understood cultural currents which, lacking prior background, I could not appreciate. If I were to sum it all up, I would subtitle my review as Lost in Translation.

'Blackwater' is not a bad book, despite my two-star rating. There are some good things about it. It is complex, far more complex than most books of this type, telling a story spanning almost twenty years and covering lots of different characters. It is a story centered around a sort of mystery, and there are lots of mysterious elements here too. But in the end, the good things about the book were not enough to hold my attention, and while I did slog my way all the way through to the end, I came out the other side disappointed.

The characters, while rich and believable, were all very distant and cold. That may have been intentional on the part of the author, but for a story like this to work for me I need characters I can sympathize with, someone I can get to know a little bit, at least enough to care what happens to them. There's lots of "psychological nuance," as Library Journal described it, but very little warmth to latch onto for any of the characters. As soon as they start to show a little humanity or sympathy, they shut down and become distant again. The whole book had me waiting for someone to show some feeling, and never seeing it.

The mystery plays always in the background, part of the story but never really the central focus. Again, this may be intentional, but I was hoping for something with a stronger mystery element and honestly more story. There is story in 'Blackwater' but only just barely -- it plods along with a deliberate and measured pace, never really doing much or saying much. When the mystery is solved in the end it doesn't seem to make much difference or change anything...it just happens, and the book is over.

As I say, this isn't a 'bad' book. It's simply not to my taste. There was a great deal of potential in it, but in the end that potential went unrealized. I was able to finish it, but it left me feeling cold and disinterested and a little numb. Definitely not a book that captured my heart, my attention, or my appreciation.

In 1974, Annie Raft takes her daughter Mia to small-town Blackwater in northern Sweden, to meet her lover Dan at a commune. When Annie searches for Dan, she instead finds two dead bodies, and spots a man leaving the scene - the same man connected with Mia years later. I read it all, but found it a bit tedious. (C+)

I have read and re-read this book about 5 times. Everytime I have re-read it, I find the characters more entangled and complex. It's a dark mystery, full of northern atmosphere, pine forests, cold water and cold weather. Once you start reading, its hard to put down until the last word.

As a newly inducted fan to La JAID,
this being my seventh of her novels that I cherish! You can`t miss with this juicy read. Fast paced with details that keep you turning page after page. Thanks Jaid!

This is a light-hearted romp built around a what-if. Namely, what if modern day Vikings lived in carved-out mountains in the Alaskan wilderness? The author takes this premise and has fun with it. This is not sci-fi or paranormal. If you want serious world-building and/or geeky explanations of why they have elevators but few light bulbs, then you'll have to go elsewhere.

The characters make this story. What's not to love about a strong, muscular Viking hero who's loving and patient with his heroine? Otar fell in love with Madalyn from her movies (especially the ones with topless scenes!). He longs for her love but secretly feels unworthy of her because of his low caste in his society. Madalyn is a good heroine, smart, wry and self-aware, fighting her feelings but drawn to her captor. Thankfully there are no TSTL or I hate you/now screw me blind moments.

Drake might be my favorite character. Paranoid, anti-government, alien-consipracy spouting, she gets most of the funny lines and scenes. Gutsily she manages to escape - her reaction to being captured again is priceless. I predict a happy marriage for her and her Alien Butthead.

The plot includes a revolution against the tyrannical jarl/king. Don't worry, there are no bloody scenes. The focus stays on the women as they worry about their men and struggle to earn money to buy food. Their unorthodox solution, a burlesque show for the jaded upper class, is as ridiculous as it is funny.

The sex is explicit and steamy, as befits an erotic romance. Otar is dominant as well as loving. Hot! There's no cheating, forced seduction, or menage scenes to worry about here. I recommend reading this when you're in the mood for or need something cheerful. Have fun :-)

Jaid Black is a wonderful author. All of her books a great. Well written, compelling and engrossing. You won't want the book to end.

There were some humorous lines . I was chuckling several times over Drake. I wasn't expecting that from an erotic novel. I enjoy this strange Viking underworld. It's different and wild. Jaid Black is an excellent author. Story brief: an actress Madalyn and her sister Drake are vacationing in the arctic. Three Vikings see them and kidnap them, taking them down to the underground world where the vikings live. There is a shortage of women there, and they will become brides. Sexual language: erotic. Number of sex scenes: seven. Setting: present day rural Alaska, arctic seacoast. Copyright: 2006. Genre: erotic fantasy romance.

There are four underground Viking stories which I rated as follows.
Besieged (in the book The Hunted) 3 stars
Hunter's Right (in the book Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down) 5 stars
Hunter's Oath (in the book Playing Easy To Get) 5 stars
Deep, Dark & Dangerous 5 stars

Madalyn is a Hollywood super star who is ignorant of the real world and decides to more to Alaska $70k bead and all. She gets sold a billy goat as a milk goat (Intuit sharpster) and names him Victoria. So when her survivalist sister points out the disparity and she get a milk goat she calls her Thor. She and her sister are captured by the descendants of Vikings who have been living underground in the artic for centuries. The "piercing Blue Eyes" as a sign of an alien was a characteristic introduced by the author in the Empresses' new clothes. Overall funny the plot is pretty linear. The characters are OK but not compelling and the sex scenes are exaggerated but still well written.

Braes are funny as the vikings are running around wearing either eyebrows or the sloping banks above a river bank.

Overall a fun read. I am surprised that some other reviewers missed the obvious humor not to say blatant parody.

Overall a very funny read.

This man is a phenomonal writer. I am 80 years old & have been an avid reader all my life. Never read anybody better. "Depths" was particularly riveting because it takes the reader into foreign lands, a time when the protaganist had an interesting contribution to make to that era. I couldn't put it down. I wish his books hit the US faster. But they have to be translated into English. Well worth the wait however. Thanks for your great service. You make my life easier.

Mankell is a complex writer which sometimes results in complex novels such as this one. While it held my attention Depths is not the type story I look to Mankell for. I much prefer his Kurt Walander series.

Translated from Swedish, the novel DEPTHS received international acclaim. Written by Henning Mankell, an author of extensive literary accomplishments, this latest is set in the icy Baltic between 1914 and 1916, when the Swedish navy is reappraising sea channels. It is protagonist Lars Tobiasson-Svartman's job to take depth soundings in the sea of the Swedish archipelago. The story takes a twist when on one of the rock islands (skerries) he becomes infatuated with a female recluse even though he has a wife in Stockholm. Our hydrographic engineer cannot keep separate his two loves, and the tragedy seems to be his own.
The book's 206 chapters depict a log-like brevity and a crystal clear prose. There is irony in the characters and their circumstances. They can be as surprising as the moving silt of the sea floor, at times as opaque as the white fog. Tobiasson-Svartman, in particular can fascinate, becalm, and frighten as the mood overtakes him. Mankell extends further and further the limit of a character's capacity for action and belief.

I've read a lot of Henning Mankell - including most of the Wallender books (which I love) so I picked up The Depths with great anticipation. Sadly, it was a huge disappointment, and I'm sorry I a) bought it and b) read it. Personally, I don't like books where there's no one to root for. I prefer to have at least one character in the story that is at least complex enough to have both good and bad characteristics - somebody human, approachable, realistic - like you would meet in real life. Nobody in The Depths is worth rooting for - they are all despicable or pathetic, and you hope bad things happen to them as they are all nuts or victims. Frankly, this was a better written version of Greg Isles' "Third Degree" which was one of the worst books I've ever read. Mankell wrote the book in his typically great style, but the substance wasn't there to carry the day. Avoid this one & read "Kennedy's Brain" instead.

Much of this story is set in and among the small barren islands of the Östergötland archipelago in the Baltic off the East coast of Sweden. And the novel suits the setting, bleak and emotionally icebound, but with a curious fascination that will not let you stop reading. It is written like an archipelago too, in very short chapters (206 in 403 pages), some little more than a paragraph, with a lot of white space between them. The style is unadorned and declarative; even emotional matters are stated flatly, as facts of the moment, with little sense of movement through time. But time does inch forward between one brief chapter and the next, almost imperceptibly, like a slow drip of water, gradually eroding any sense of normality and order.

Mankell has always written simply and clearly; I enjoy his Inspector Wallander mysteries (especially THE FIFTH WOMAN) for their combination of straightforward storytelling and psychological insight, set within a realistic portrayal of contemporary Swedish life. I know I will read others in the series with pleasure, but DEPTHS is completely different. Instead of the concrete present, it takes place in an uncertain past, at the outbreak of the 1914-18 war when Sweden's neutrality was still in doubt. Instead of being rooted in cities and towns on dry land, it takes place mostly at sea, on ships or tiny rocky islands. Instead of opening to a rich social world of human beings interacting with one another, it gradually closes in to the mind of one man, obsessive, misanthropic, ultimately mad, as he gradually loses all normal contact with his fellow human beings.

The book begins in madness, a woman escaping from a mental hospital. She is soon recaptured, and we flash back to 1914 to meet her husband, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, sane, upright, and well respected. A Swedish naval officer, he is charged with making depth soundings that will establish secret channels between offshore islands for naval vessels to use in case of war. Svartman pursues his work with obsessive professionalism; if there are strange things about him, we assume they have to do with details of his secret mission which will be revealed in due course. Only gradually do we see his obsession as part of his character, and secretiveness as his very essence. By the time he encounters a woman living alone on one of the islands, and gets drawn into a double life of secrets upon secrets, his downward spiral becomes inevitable. The poor woman of the prologue may have lost her reason, but the cause of her madness lies elsewhere.

Imagine a Dostoyevsky on downers, cooler, less complex, but with the same dogged pursuit of his protagonist as he declines into psychosis. I hated this book, but have to admire Mankell's power as a writer. Even in translation, the man is good!

I didn't have the taste to finish this book, but I did read parts and I plan to keep it around as a nice reference. That is because while it is interesting and pretty well researched it is biased to the point of distortion. Facts become selective, motivations imagined, omissions crucial.

On the other hand, the pro-Cuba bias in this book, while often heard on the internet and among certain pseudo-intellectual circles, is rarely presented in such a readable scholarly fashion. Also, the rare access that the author had makes the book valuable for just that point.

In short, the book is very well made, but restrained by its status as a pro-Cuba polemic. Still even those without the pro-Cuba view (such as myself) can find it very interesting and useful, even if not worth reading end to end.

In conflicting Mission, Gleijeses explain the real role of Cuba and the USA in the 1970s Angolan conflict.

The work is well researched, using rare documents obtained from both sides of the cruel Cold-Warriors embargo(wall)--imposed upon Cuba by Washington. Gleijeses research is as thorough as it is deep, thus he has produced an excellent book.

Notwithstanding, I wish to draw attention to one issue his conclusion, which I believe will continue to compromise, for sometime, otherwise sound research about cold war era conflicts such as this one.

Cold War propaganda and the false "Truths" that they have created can lead to wrong conclusions, even when unbiased facts are presented. Brilliant researchers such as Gleijeses are not immunized against this sickness.

In the work, he suggested that Angola had only marginal strategic significance to the US. He argues that intervention in Angola served only to protect the prestige and credibility of America's global foreign policy. Therefore, a small, but rational, purpose of the Angolan mission would be to demonstrate that Vietnam had not reduced America's resolve to protect its foreign interest everywhere--even in backward third world countries. Another small, but equally rational purpose of the mission, he thought, was Kissinger's fear that the Marxist-lite MPLA could subvert détente in Southern Africa.

In contrast, he concluded that the Cuban mission--less rational--was motivated by Castro's revolutionary zeal. So the author reasons, the Cubans felt that they needed to fulfill some kind of messianic mission in the Third World.

Another explanation offered by Gleijeses, for the Cubans decision to take on such a great risk (David vs. Goliath),was based upon their desire to strike back at the United States... Where it was less risky--In less significant Africa, and at the same time build Cuban solidarity abroad. Here David decides to only politically tickle Goliath's feet, not to inflict upon him a military, political and economic head-blow. Africa, accordingly was a good place for the expression of this strange Cuban enthusiasm

Gleijeses did not remind his readers that the Stalinist Soviet Union had long ago decided to build their brand of Socialism in one country only! No wonder Maoist China and Stalinist Russia could not see eye to eye!

In addition, Professor Gleijeses did not draw our attention to the fact that all the so called "Cold War" wars (military, economic and psychological), were carried out against former colonies of Europe--in Africa, Asia, Latin America and in parts of Europe itself. People in the former colonies had launched a more vigorous struggle for independence after their European masters ability to subjugate them was wrecked by the war with Germany.

The USA and the USSR, important beneficiaries of World War II, seeking to claim their spoils from that war, simply met resistance from antsy colonial peoples fighting, individually and in alliance, to claim their freedom. Angola and Cuba, and Cuba in Angola represented a part of that process and was just one outcome of people in society trying to claim their natural rights. I don't recall that the author mentioned that issue in his great book.

What was the "non-aligned movement" and the "Group of 77" about in global relations during that period? Economic unity and liberation from white supremacy, colonialism and imperialism.

In this context, it is not useful to imply or to suggest that Cuba's mission in Angola was less rational than that of the US or that it was based on a counterproductive desire for revenge. Hopefully, as we put more distance between the Cold War and ourselves, more research like Gleijeses' will be produced, but with less prejudiced conclusions drawn.

Towards the middle of 1988, Castro, who had taken personal control of the war, wanted to withdraw from Angola and discussions began on how this could be accomplished without losing face. One of Castro's top generals in Angola had already tried to defect and Moscow was pressing Castro to reach a settlement. The Cuban leader adopted an aggressive stance and threw more Cuban troops into the front line in order to lend weight to his negotiating position in the peace talks. General Del Pino, who also defected to the West, pointed out that it was pure bluff on Castro's part and that he feared defeat was imminent.
Cuban forces, integrated with SWAPO units, nevertheless pressed on to within 12 kilometres of the Namibian border. Facing 11,000 Cubans and perhaps 2,000 SWAPO was a force of 500 battle-hardened men from 32 "Buffalo" Battalion, the only available troops at the border until reinforcements could arrive. They held the line until tanks and artillery could be moved up. Cuban MiG-23s joined the fray and one was shot down. As the South African forces prepared to move North to engage the Cubans in what promised to be a Cuban nemesis, the Cubans signed the New York peace accords and avoided disaster.
The Cubans immediately claimed victory, which Bridgland points out was 'nonsense', but that:
the Cuban story was taken at face value by Castro's sympathisers in the Western press and repeated so many times that it became received truth. The Cubans were helped by the South Africans' own clumsy efforts at propaganda, which amounted to saying as little as possible about the full-scale war they fought in Angola.
The SADF at no stage had wanted an all-out war that would take them to Luanda as conquerors. Their objectives had been to fight a limited war in support of UNITA and prevent the Cubans from capturing UNITA's strongholds. The SADF had succeeded in this and was content to let the Cubans take the limelight. As Bridgland points out in his final summary of the war:
The War for Africa and the New York accords provided Cuba with pretexts for slipping out of a commitment that had become too hot and too expensive to handle. In 1975, when the Cuban adventure in Angola began, the 'scientific socialist' and 'internationalist' tide running from Moscow looked unstoppable. By 1988 it was a faded dream. Despite 13 years of Cuban support, the Angolan economy was ruined. The Marxist MPLA was in utter disarray and was trying desperately to shed its 'scientific-socialist' past... Castro's dreams of a Marxist revolution spreading from Angola to encompass the whole of Southern Africa had become a poor music hall joke...

"The War for Africa" by Fred Bridgland....the most accurate account of Cuba's involvement in the Angolan conflict.

From page 271,

"U.S. intelligence reports shed some light on the issue. In January 1976 Kissinger told Congress that "In August [1975], intelligence reports indicated the presence of Soviet and Cuban military adviser, trainers and troops, including the first Cuban combat troops." He was rewriting history: in the summer of 1975 U.S. intelligence told a different story. (d) An August 20 CIA report concluded, "What seems ....likely is that the Soviets have asked Cuba to help out with advisers and technicians....[sanitized] Officials of the Ministry of Information, which is controlled by the MPLA, have tried to pass them off as tourist." On September 22, an INR report claimed that "the Soviet and other allied countries, notably Cuba, have provided technicians and advisor to assist in military planning and logistics. While most are based in the Congo, there is increasing evidence that some foreign advisers are present with MPLA units inside Angola." On October 11 the CIA National Intelligence Daily specified that "a few Cuban technical advisers have been operating with Popular Movement [MPLA] inside Angola for time." There was no mention Cuban troops, or even of large numbers of instructors, until early October, when a significant number of Cuban advisers did indeed arrive."

(d) Kissinger, Jan. 29, 1976, U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Ralations, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Angola, p. 10. In his memoirs, Kissinger cites one of my articles to support his claim that the Cuban intervention "began in May, accelerated in July, and turned massive in September and October," which is precisely the opposite of what my article said. (Kissinger, Renewal, p.820)

As to the likelihood that Cubans were following Soviet orders, we hear on page 307 from "Arkady Shevchenko, who was an adviser of Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko in 1970-73 and then undersecretary-general of the United Nations until 1978, when he defected to the United States, [and who] writes that in 1976 Vasily Kznetsov, acting foreign minister, asked him to join a group reviewing Soviet policy in Africa.. Shevchenko asked Kuznetsov, ""How did we persuade the Cubans to provide their contingent?'...Kuznetsov laughed ...and told me that the idea for large-scale military operation had originated in Havana, not Moscow.""

Evidently, the Cubans were acting in Africa at great cost to themselves at least in part from a humanitarian concern for the dignity of Angolans. The historical record shows no such concern on the part of the United States of America.

well-documented, well-reasoned, and suspenseful. Great scholarship.

CONFLICTING MISSIONS is a brilliant, impressive, and important book. It not only teaches us about the dramatic differences between US and Cuban policies in Africa during the Cold War (until 1976), but it also stretches our minds to see the Cold War "from below." Virtually all Cold War history has been written from the US (or Western)perspective, based on US archives. Gleijeses is the only scholar to have gained access to the Cuban archives; the result is that CONFLICTING MISSIONS contains not only new information but also a new perspective. Gleijeses challenges the reader to reconsider established truths. In his narrative -- which is voluminously supported by research not only in Cuba but also in US, Belgian, West German, East German, and British archives, as well as almost 200 interviews -- Fidel Castro, not the Americans, is shown to be the leader pursuing an idealistic foreign policy.