In early 1960, Belgium relinquished its huge central African holding, the Belgian Congo, and Patrice Lumumba was democratically elected as the first prime minister of the newly independent country. He took office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at the end of June 1960 in the west-coast capital of Leopoldville. In January 1961, less than seven months later, he was killed in the breakaway province of Katanga in the distant southeast. By this time, the country's governance was in a shambles; the United Nations (UN), which had intervened to restore order, was dishonored and weakened as an organization; and hopes for a positive route to decolonization had been smashed.
Now told many times, the story of Lumumba's tribulations and his land's descent into chaos is compelling and complex. The Lumumba Plot, engagingly written and deeply researched, is yet another account of the troubles in the early 1960s...