A POPULAR HISTORY OF IDI AMIN'S UGANDA

354pp., illus., map, hardback, d.w., Yale University Press, New Haven, 2025

ISBN: 9780300278385

Derek Peterson demonstrates how, in his eight years as President of Uganda (1971-1979), Idi Amin mobilised ordinary people - civil servants, curators and artists, businesspeople and patriots - by convincing them they were fighting a war against imperialism and colonial oppression. These citizens worked tirelessly to keep government institutions functioning, even as resources dried up and political violence became pervasive.

“Derek Peterson does it again, taking a topic we thought we knew - Amin’s dictatorship - and making us see it anew. Using provincial archives that he and his team saved from damp, insects, and mold, he tells a riveting tale of how clerks, curators, radio personnel, artists, priests, and teachers strove to make Amin’s government work. They were not the torturers and interrogators, of which there were many, but provincial patriots inspired by Amin’s anti-colonial message.” Isabel Hofmeyr, author of Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House

“How did Idi Amin’s regime survive? Peterson shows how many people in Uganda were earnestly committed to what they saw as a project of liberation - despite the appalling atrocities of the time. This book is a thoughtful and timely account of the ability of demagogues to mobilize popular support.” Justin Willis, coauthor of The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa: Democracy, Voting and Virtue

Derek Peterson is the Ali Mazrui Professor of History and African Studies at the University of Michigan. His books include Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent and The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin. He lives in Ann Arbor.