---
product_id: 2469724
title: "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda"
price: "£18.80"
currency: GBP
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/2469724-shake-hands-with-the-devil-the-failure-of-humanity-in
store_origin: GB
region: United Kingdom
---

# Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

**Price:** £18.80
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## Description

For the first time in the United States comes the tragic and profoundly important story of the legendary Canadian general who "watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect." When Romeo Dallaire was called on to serve as force commander of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda, he believed that his assignment was to help two warring parties achieve the peace they both wanted. Instead, he was exposed to the most barbarous and chaotic display of civil war and genocide in the past decade, observing in just one hundred days the killings of more than eight hundred thousand Rwandans. With only a few troops, his own ingenuity and courage to direct his efforts, Dallaire rescued thousands, but his call for more support from the world body fell on deaf ears. In Shake Hands with the Devil, General Dallaire recreates the awful history the world community chose to ignore. He also chronicles his own progression from confident Cold Warrior to devastated UN commander, and finally to retired general struggling painfully, and publicly, to overcome posttraumatic stress disorder -- the highest-ranking officer ever to share such experiences with readers.

Review: A great read about a Human Catastrophe - My interest in the Rwandan Genocide was heightened when in 2012 I was sent to Rwanda in a partnership for Africa program with the US Air Force and stayed the Collins (Hotel from the Movie Hotel Rwanda). When I was there I went to the Genocide Museum and Memorial and was both fascinated and appalled that this happened. Since I didn't have much knowledge of the incident, I was in 12th grade when it happened, I decided to read this book as it was highly rated. I'm very glad I did. This was/is an amazing book that goes into substantial detail of how and why this horrific incident happened. As is the case with most nonfiction books there is a bit of history on the author and where they came from, etc. This is kept fairly short in this book and is also relevant to the story and interesting. When Dillaire starts the story of what happened in Rwanda you can tell its not going to end well and he does not hide the bitterness and pain that his 1 yr experience in living hell left him with. Be forewarned this book is very graphic and pulls no punches. The detail in which the actual genocide is detailed and how some of the acts were perpetrated is not for the faint of heart, no pictures are needed and thankfully not included. To be honest there were a few times that some of the details in this book kept me up at night and brought a sense how we "civilized" Nations could have just sat back and 800,000 people be slaughter in 100 days. The detail in this book is not written simply to shock the reader, but rather to inform you (the reader) of the brutality and complete hatred that was so prevalent during this event. This book also does a phenomenal job of also describing the excruciating effects on the UN Peacekeepers and Dillaire that witnessing so much death and destruction had on them. I walked away from reading this book mad that the UN and the "leader" nations of the world didn't give a damn about Rwanda and as is continually demonstrated the African continent. If you decide to buy this book, and I highly recommend that you do, you will understand why I made that last statement. I enjoyed this book immensely and also came away better understanding the sense of abandonment that so many developing countries feel from Western culture and nations, and the continual issues that past colonialism in Africa is still causing today.
Review: Even-handed, objective, a good read - Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide there, wrote "Shake Hands with the Devil". It consists of a day-by-day account of Dallaire's ill-fated UN mission to oversee an end to the civil war that had been eviscerating Rwanda since 1990. Shortly after the initial U.N. deployment, the President's of Rwanda and neigboring Burundi were assassinated when their aircraft was shot down. This event triggered a resurgence in the ethnic fighting that provided cover for government and ethnic Hutu militias to ethnically cleanse, by systematic slaughter, the country's Tutsi ethnic minority. In 100 days, some 800,000 were slaughtered, as the U.N. and the rest of the world idly looked on. I have travelled throughout much of Rwanda on several trips, and Dallaire's account tracks precisely with my own observations. Both the U.N. and the United States political leadership failed monumentally in their assessment and subsequent inaction in Rwanda. The French government and military, who seem to have gotten away relatively unscathed in the arena of public opinion, actually served to aid and abet the genocidaires; a crime for which they will likely never be held to account. On the other side, there is heroism as well, as Africans eventually succeeded on their own, to stop the killing. Dallaire impresses me as a consummate professional who was placed in command of a mission that never had a chance of success. He was profoundly effected, has attempted suicide, and suffers from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Nevertheless his prose is direct, powerful, his account powerful because of the events that happened, not so much because of his opinions about it. From this reading, as a former soldier, I would fight to serve under such an officer. If you read nothing else about Rwanda, read this book.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #157,440 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #9 in Central Africa History #11 in East Africa History #21 in African Politics |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,146 Reviews |

## Images

![Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71-Dz-sncBL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A great read about a Human Catastrophe
*by R***H on November 26, 2013*

My interest in the Rwandan Genocide was heightened when in 2012 I was sent to Rwanda in a partnership for Africa program with the US Air Force and stayed the Collins (Hotel from the Movie Hotel Rwanda). When I was there I went to the Genocide Museum and Memorial and was both fascinated and appalled that this happened. Since I didn't have much knowledge of the incident, I was in 12th grade when it happened, I decided to read this book as it was highly rated. I'm very glad I did. This was/is an amazing book that goes into substantial detail of how and why this horrific incident happened. As is the case with most nonfiction books there is a bit of history on the author and where they came from, etc. This is kept fairly short in this book and is also relevant to the story and interesting. When Dillaire starts the story of what happened in Rwanda you can tell its not going to end well and he does not hide the bitterness and pain that his 1 yr experience in living hell left him with. Be forewarned this book is very graphic and pulls no punches. The detail in which the actual genocide is detailed and how some of the acts were perpetrated is not for the faint of heart, no pictures are needed and thankfully not included. To be honest there were a few times that some of the details in this book kept me up at night and brought a sense how we "civilized" Nations could have just sat back and 800,000 people be slaughter in 100 days. The detail in this book is not written simply to shock the reader, but rather to inform you (the reader) of the brutality and complete hatred that was so prevalent during this event. This book also does a phenomenal job of also describing the excruciating effects on the UN Peacekeepers and Dillaire that witnessing so much death and destruction had on them. I walked away from reading this book mad that the UN and the "leader" nations of the world didn't give a damn about Rwanda and as is continually demonstrated the African continent. If you decide to buy this book, and I highly recommend that you do, you will understand why I made that last statement. I enjoyed this book immensely and also came away better understanding the sense of abandonment that so many developing countries feel from Western culture and nations, and the continual issues that past colonialism in Africa is still causing today.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Even-handed, objective, a good read
*by J***L on September 16, 2005*

Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide there, wrote "Shake Hands with the Devil". It consists of a day-by-day account of Dallaire's ill-fated UN mission to oversee an end to the civil war that had been eviscerating Rwanda since 1990. Shortly after the initial U.N. deployment, the President's of Rwanda and neigboring Burundi were assassinated when their aircraft was shot down. This event triggered a resurgence in the ethnic fighting that provided cover for government and ethnic Hutu militias to ethnically cleanse, by systematic slaughter, the country's Tutsi ethnic minority. In 100 days, some 800,000 were slaughtered, as the U.N. and the rest of the world idly looked on. I have travelled throughout much of Rwanda on several trips, and Dallaire's account tracks precisely with my own observations. Both the U.N. and the United States political leadership failed monumentally in their assessment and subsequent inaction in Rwanda. The French government and military, who seem to have gotten away relatively unscathed in the arena of public opinion, actually served to aid and abet the genocidaires; a crime for which they will likely never be held to account. On the other side, there is heroism as well, as Africans eventually succeeded on their own, to stop the killing. Dallaire impresses me as a consummate professional who was placed in command of a mission that never had a chance of success. He was profoundly effected, has attempted suicide, and suffers from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Nevertheless his prose is direct, powerful, his account powerful because of the events that happened, not so much because of his opinions about it. From this reading, as a former soldier, I would fight to serve under such an officer. If you read nothing else about Rwanda, read this book.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Good, but with some issues.
*by R***L on January 10, 2012*

I was debating to myself whether to give this three or four stars. I ended up with four largely because I felt that the importance of the book as a chronicle (a chronicle in the classical sense) of the Rwandan Genocide, as well as its positives in general, outweighed the negatives. As a positive, the book is well written in a certain respect. Dallaire is clear, consise and to the point. He also apparently knows what he wants to say, and doesn't skirt the issue. All of this results in what might not be a traditional "easy read," but at least in a relatively brisk one. Stylistically, though, I think Dallaire stumbles. It's obvious that he's a soldier and not an author, and while this leads to the no-nonsense prose detailed above, it can also lead him to an overuse of cliche. I must have read, when Dallaire was describing a building, "it was a _____ affair," at least ten times throughout the book, just as an example. But, truly, this is the editor's failure, and I'm hesitant to lay the blame squarely at Dallaire's feet. Also positive is the fact that Dallaire, despite his overall structure, does manage to create a set of somewhat vibrant characters that appear and re-appear. The enigmatic Paul Kagame, for example, or the competent and loyal subordinates of Dallaire's command, such as Henri Anyidoho. On the negative side, his structure as a whole is purely chronological. On one hand I get the idea that extraneous information was weeded out, but on the other hand, I feel that Dallaire and his editors were too merciful. A good deal could have been taken from the text. On top of all of this, it is in many cases a dry repeat of events. To some degree this makes sense, I suppose - Dallaire wants us to follow him through his deployment to Rwanda. But on the other hand, I think it hurts his semi-stated aim of Mea Culpa, since a true Mea Culpa should come through analysis and retrospection. Dallaire avoids all of that, and while there are (precious few) tidbits of analysis, they're generally short and tacked on to the daily report. What so-and-so was thinking, what such-and-such was doing behind the scenes and how it fit in, etc.. It would have been stronger if he had developed the analysis explicitly and over time through various sections of the book. For a book that is, in many ways, a Mea Culpa, Dallaire shirks having to do much personal analysis on the Rwandan Genocide and how it affected him, other than little morsels and a sentence here and there. How did it affect his family life? How did it affect his career? These issues are briefly mentioned in the introduction, but never touched on afterwards. He mentions he gave a soldirly farewell to his eldest son, instead of a fatherly one, and mentions that would come back to haunt him, but he never explains why. All in all, it would have been better as a personal retrospective than a dry reportage. It would have fit the subject matter, too - an actual historical account of the Rwandan Genocide would have been best served by an author writing on the players from a third person omniscient perspective. Dallaire's first person perspective hamstrings any attempt at an actual chronicle of events because it's far too one sided - we know of Kagame, for instance, pretty much only what Dallaire has encountered in him. A recitation of events and interviews on one side doesn't make for a good chronicle. It would have been far more potent as a personal reflection on his work there, fitted out with analysis on the powers and players and himself that was lacking in the often clinical and detached repeat of each day's events. None of this makes it a bad book - it's quite a good book. It gives the reader a wonderful inside look at the Rwandan Genocide by a by all accounts stalwart and competent commander. I just wonder if he made a mistake on the form.

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*Last updated: 2026-06-07*