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A review by danielles_reads
Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa by Brian J. Peterson
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
This book was a great primer on the life of Thomas Sankara! It is super thorough and detailed, and draws from a ton of primary sources and interviews. I'm really glad I read it, even though it took me quite a bit of time to get through it.
I really like how the book was organized, which was both chronologically and by topic. It made it really easy to follow the trajectory of Sankara's life and his revolution. I think Peterson managed to hit the right mostly neutral tone as well, as he never idolized Sankara's character and made sure to mention his mistakes. Nevertheless, I definitely grew to admire him by the end of the book as he was a man who clearly stuck to his morals. I'm fascinated at how he continued to live his almost ascetic life and advocate for people of all classes, ethnicities, and genders in the face of so much opposition. And man, I'm so glad that Blaise Compaoré was finally found guilty of Sankara's murder, because damn, the shit he did in this book was atrocious! It was really sad to me that even the most dedicated leaders can't keep a revolution going if so many people around them continue to be greedy and selfish.
I did find myself a little lost at times, as the author repeatedly mentioned the names of cities and leaders without their corresponding country (or in the case of various Burkinabe leaders, their ideology). And yeah, maybe that would have been repetitive, but there were sooo many different locations and people mentioned, and I could not keep them straight. Some of the transitions between events were also rough (like Peterson described Sankara getting arrested and then never mention when he was released, before continuing on). I read this on the Hoopla app, and the formatting of the footnotes was completely messed up, as all the footnote numbers in every chapter linked to the citations in the introduction, which made this read feel even more tiring as I manually went back and forth. The book is written in a fairly straightforward manner, but it still did feel very academic solely due to the huge amount of info.
Regardless, I learned a ton about an inspiring political figure from a little-known country. At the end of the book, the author discusses how Sankara is often compared to Che Guevara, but one of his friends says that he doesn't understand why, as Sankara never killed anyone to achieve his goals, like Guevara did. And I found that really interesting--why isn't Sankara more well-known? And the sad fact is, it's probably because there was no real benefit for Western countries to interfere in Burkina Faso (as Peterson mentioned multiple times throughout the book) compared to Cuba, and thus no reason for regular Western citizens to hear about the country. And how sad is that?! I really hope more people learn about Thomas Sankara, and I'm really glad I read this book.
I really like how the book was organized, which was both chronologically and by topic. It made it really easy to follow the trajectory of Sankara's life and his revolution. I think Peterson managed to hit the right mostly neutral tone as well, as he never idolized Sankara's character and made sure to mention his mistakes. Nevertheless, I definitely grew to admire him by the end of the book as he was a man who clearly stuck to his morals. I'm fascinated at how he continued to live his almost ascetic life and advocate for people of all classes, ethnicities, and genders in the face of so much opposition. And man, I'm so glad that Blaise Compaoré was finally found guilty of Sankara's murder, because damn, the shit he did in this book was atrocious! It was really sad to me that even the most dedicated leaders can't keep a revolution going if so many people around them continue to be greedy and selfish.
I did find myself a little lost at times, as the author repeatedly mentioned the names of cities and leaders without their corresponding country (or in the case of various Burkinabe leaders, their ideology). And yeah, maybe that would have been repetitive, but there were sooo many different locations and people mentioned, and I could not keep them straight. Some of the transitions between events were also rough (like Peterson described Sankara getting arrested and then never mention when he was released, before continuing on). I read this on the Hoopla app, and the formatting of the footnotes was completely messed up, as all the footnote numbers in every chapter linked to the citations in the introduction, which made this read feel even more tiring as I manually went back and forth. The book is written in a fairly straightforward manner, but it still did feel very academic solely due to the huge amount of info.
Regardless, I learned a ton about an inspiring political figure from a little-known country. At the end of the book, the author discusses how Sankara is often compared to Che Guevara, but one of his friends says that he doesn't understand why, as Sankara never killed anyone to achieve his goals, like Guevara did. And I found that really interesting--why isn't Sankara more well-known? And the sad fact is, it's probably because there was no real benefit for Western countries to interfere in Burkina Faso (as Peterson mentioned multiple times throughout the book) compared to Cuba, and thus no reason for regular Western citizens to hear about the country. And how sad is that?! I really hope more people learn about Thomas Sankara, and I'm really glad I read this book.