Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda, and the War on Terror (Columbia Global Reports) - Softcover

Helen Epstein is Visiting Professor of Global Public Health and Human Rights at Bard College in Annandale, New York. Her book The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight against AIDS in Africa (Picador 2008), was a New York Times Notable Book and was Amazon.com's best science book of 2007. Her articles have appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's and other publications and she has worked as a consultant for such organizations as the World Bank, UNICEF and Human Rights Watch.

"A stunning new book of reportage and analysis....Helen Epstein lays out in appalling detail how Museveni, who seized power in 1986, has helped worsen every major conflict in eastern and central Africa since then." -- Pankaj Mishra, Bloomberg View

"Epstein's absorbing book is a damning indictment of the American hypocrisy that has been on display across Africa since the Europeans packed up and left as colonialism collapsed after World War II. A public health consultant who has spent many years talking to and writing about many of the dissidents who have opposed strongman rule in East Africa, Epstein has compiled a catalog of almost every arrest, kidnapping, and execution engineered by Museveni and his goons -- all while America looked the other way." -- Helene Cooper, The New York Review of Books

"Very accessible and richly detailed." - Africa is a Country

"Epstein’s briskly narrated yet detailed chronicle is as much an indictment of US policy toward East Africa as it is of President Museveni’s record at home and abroad."-- Kevin J. Kelley,The East African

"Epstein joins a number of other critics of current U.S. policy in Africa in noting that the 'war on terror' has led Washington to sharply increase military assistance to the region, emphasize stability over democracy, and tacitly or explicitly support dictators....an often troubling indictment of U.S. policy." - Foreign Affairs

"Epstein forcefully showcases the collateral damage of myopic American foreign policy that obsesses about terrorism everywhere -- even in Uganda -- to the detriment of all other considerations. Another Fine Mess chronicles how American foreign policy driven by short-term security concerns results in long-term crises and an entrenchment of authoritarian rule in the process. An important and prescient cautionary tale." - Brian Klaas, Fellow at the London School of Economics and author of The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy

"As her new book reveals, Helen Epstein is an eloquent advocate of human rights and democracy for Africans, as well as a courageous critic of how U.S. aid supports oppressive dictators like Yoweri Museveni in Uganda."
- William Easterly, Professor of Economics at NYU and author of The Tyranny of Experts and The White Man's Burden

"For decades, Western policy-makers have hailed Uganda's Yoweri Museveni as a benign autocrat, a charming African Bismarck and trusted partner in the fight against Islamic fundamentalism. Another Fine Messreveals a far darker side to this key African ally, while exposing the cynicism at the heart of American policy in Africa's Great Lakes region. This gripping, iconoclastic, angry book raises a host of uncomfortable questions."
- Michela Wrong, author of Borderlines and It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower

"Epstein's book is well written, well documented, and brief enough that it should be widely read. Essential for anyone interested in American foreign policy as it relates to Africa." -- Library Journal
"A sizzling indictment of Uganda's current strongman and of the American policy in Africa that supports his corrupt regime with generous foreign aid." -- Kirkus Reviews