Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State

A leading public intellectual gives his authoritative and personal account of the tragic postcolonial fate of Uganda, his homeland.

In 1972, when Mahmood Mamdani came home to Uganda, he found a country transformed by “an orgy of violence.” Two years earlier, with support from the colonial powers of Great Britain and Israel, Idi Amin had forcefully cemented his rule. He soon expelled Uganda’s Indian minority in hopes of fostering a nation for Black Ugandans. The plan backfired. Amin was foll...