The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent [Hardcover]

The story of the Cuban-South African war in Angola in 198788 through the eyes of the South Africans who fought in it.The Angolan Civil War lasted over a quarter of a century, from 1975 to 2002. Beginning as a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the MPLA and UNITA, it became a Cold War struggle with involvement from the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa and the USA.This book examines the height of the Cuban-South African fighting in Angola in 198788, when 3,000 South African soldiers and about 8,000 UNITA guerrilla fighters fought in alliance against the Cubans and the armed forces of the Marxist MPLA government, a force of over 50,000 men. Bridgland pieced together the course of the war, fought in one of the worlds most remote and wild terrains, by interviewing the South Africans who fought it, and many of their accounts are woven into the narrative.This classic account of a Cold War struggle and its momentous consequences for the participants and across the continent, is released in a new edition with a new preface and epilogue.The story of the Cuban-South African war in Angola in 198788 through the eyes of the South Africans who fought in it.&a gripping text that highlights just how much political and social considerations dictate the outcome of war& A highly detailed work of military history, The War for Africa can tell us a lot about the nature of counter-insurgency warfare and how small states can become contested battlegrounds between superpowers....a very impressive contribution, which will have its place across the world in studies of this theatre. This book presents the story of the Cuban-South African war in Angola in 1987-1988. It uses the accounts of the South African veterans to produce a rich and gripping narrative.Re-issued with a revised preface and interesting epilogue, this book has to be in the library of anyone who is interested in the minutiae of the war in Angola and the impact of the Cold War in Africa.As an operl³.