{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1788733762?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"1788733762","authors":["Thomas Deltombe","Jacob Tatsitsa","Manuel Domergue"],"book_id":"9781788733762","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/the-cameroon-war-9781788733762","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781788733762.jpg?v=a22e9e5977220262","description":"The shocking history of France's secret war in Cameroon and its neocolonial afterlives Legend has it that the end of France’s empire in sub-Saharan Africa was a peaceful affair. This book tells a very different story, exposing the shocking violence of a secret war. Its theater was Cameroon in the 1950s and ‘60s, where a mass movement for self-determination emerged under the leadership of a pro-independence party, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC). In response, the colonial power opted for brutal repression. Employing the same methods as in Algeria, French forces waged a counterinsurgency campaign of extraordinary violence, eventually eradicating the opposition and installing a client dictatorship in Yaoundé. At the height of the Cold War, with attention focused on the Algerian bloodbath, the conflict in Cameroon received little attention at the time. Subsequently, its devastating consequences — and tens of millions of victims — would be intentionally obscured by French authorities and their local collaborators. The Cameroon War uncovers this hidden history for the first time. It illuminates a forgotten struggle for decolonization at the origin of neocolonial rule in Francophone Africa that persists to this day.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781788733762","publication_date":"20250729","publisher":"Verso Books","slug":"the-cameroon-war","subtitle":"A History of French Neocolonialism in Africa","title":"The Cameroon War"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"HIS001050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"West African History","score":0.7754,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Central African History","score":0.774,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"North African History","score":0.7631,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"HIS001050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"West African History","score":0.7754,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Central African History","score":0.774,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HIS001030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"North African History","score":0.7631,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"HIS001050","confidence_band":"high","label":"West African History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"HIS054000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Social History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"POL045000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Colonialism & Its Aftermath","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"West African History","score":0.7754,"slug":"west-african-history"},{"label":"Central African History","score":0.774,"slug":"central-african-history"},{"label":"North African History","score":0.7631,"slug":"north-african-history"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in Cameroon’s struggle for decolonization","Good for readers interested in French colonialism and neocolonial rule in Africa"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Alistair Horne"],"book_id":"9781590172186","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781590172186.jpg?v=295647b50409669c","score":0.7097,"title":"A Savage War of Peace","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781590172186"},{"authors":["Douglas Porch"],"book_id":"9780374128807","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780374128807.jpg?v=bf454f7fbc60dae7","score":0.7054,"title":"The Conquest of Morocco","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780374128807"},{"authors":["Paul Moorcraft"],"book_id":"9781526704887","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781526704887.jpg?v=245bf2affd86359f","score":0.7053,"title":"Total Onslaught","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781526704887"},{"authors":["Howard W. French","James Fouhey","HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books"],"book_id":"9781324092407","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781324092407.jpg?v=88e87e61920958c3","score":0.6963,"title":"Born in Blackness","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781324092407"},{"authors":["J. P. Daughton"],"book_id":"9781324050353","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781324050353.jpg?v=3aae0b67bb4de202","score":0.6941,"title":"In the Forest of No Joy","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781324050353"},{"authors":["Chanté McCormick","Susan Williams","PublicAffairs"],"book_id":"9781541768307","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781541768307.jpg?v=2179249f0312c9bf","score":0.6918,"title":"White Malice","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781541768307"},{"authors":["René Lemarchand"],"book_id":"9780812241204","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780812241204.jpg?v=82192a66fd43cb0e","score":0.687,"title":"The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780812241204"},{"authors":["Martin Meredith"],"book_id":"9781610390712","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781610390712.jpg?v=b53aa0ed1d34e6cf","score":0.6802,"title":"The Fate of Africa","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781610390712"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:world history"],"label":"History","score":0.4536,"slug":"history"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:political science"],"label":"Science","score":0.1776,"slug":"science"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:world history"],"label":"World","score":0.0848,"slug":"world"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:political science"],"label":"Political","score":0.0493,"slug":"political"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Cameroonian independence struggle, French colonial repression, Neocolonial rule in Africa.","Themes: History, Science, Political.","Reading lane: West African History and Central African History."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.94,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["Readers interested in Cameroon’s struggle for decolonization","Readers interested in French colonialism and neocolonial rule in Africa"],"themes":["Cameroonian independence struggle","French colonial repression","Neocolonial rule in Africa"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":0,"goodreads_ratings_count":74,"goodreads_reviews_count":16,"quality_score":0.865}}