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A Popular History of Idi Amin's Uganda
How Africa’s most notorious tyrant made his oppressive regime seem both necessary and patriotic
Idi Amin ruled Uganda between 1971 and 1979, inflicting tremendous violence on the people of the country. How did Amin’s regime survive for eight calamitous years? Drawing on recently uncovered archival material, Derek Peterson reconstructs the political logic of the era, focusing on the ordinary people—civil servants, curators and artists, businesspeople, patriots—who invested their energy and resources in making the government work.
Peterson reveals how Amin (1928–2003) led ordinary people to see themselves as front-line soldiers in a global war against imperialism and colonial oppression. They worked tirelessly to ensure that government institutions kept functioning, even as resources dried up and political violence became pervasive. In this case study of how principled, talented, and patriotic people sacrificed themselves in service to a dictator, Peterson provides lessons for our own time.
Idi Amin ruled Uganda between 1971 and 1979, inflicting tremendous violence on the people of the country. How did Amin’s regime survive for eight calamitous years? Drawing on recently uncovered archival material, Derek Peterson reconstructs the political logic of the era, focusing on the ordinary people—civil servants, curators and artists, businesspeople, patriots—who invested their energy and resources in making the government work.
Peterson reveals how Amin (1928–2003) led ordinary people to see themselves as front-line soldiers in a global war against imperialism and colonial oppression. They worked tirelessly to ensure that government institutions kept functioning, even as resources dried up and political violence became pervasive. In this case study of how principled, talented, and patriotic people sacrificed themselves in service to a dictator, Peterson provides lessons for our own time.
- GenresAfricaHistoryNonfiction
376 pages, Hardcover
First published June 24, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 8, 2025
I remember watching *The Last King of Scotland* in high school and thinking it was great, even rewatching it a few times. It probably says something that, despite watching the movie so many times, I had no idea what country Idi Amin was in charge of, or where Uganda was on the map. I picked up this book to correct my ignorance as I start working on a research project with some relevance to Uganda.
This is a straightforward academic text. Every chapter could be a standalone article; each starts with an overview of the big picture takeaway; then a page break, the empirical content to support the takeaway; and then a page-break to conclusion. I will never understand why academic writing, supposedly aimed at an audience more attuned to difficult reading, traditionally spoon feeds the reader like this. That said, an interesting and worthwhile book about Uganda’s most famous leader. Less a comprehensive overview and more a series of chapters that each touch on a theme of his rule.
Here are some things that stood out. First, the fact that Uganda is composed of kingdoms, which persisted through British colonialism and into independence. Each kingdom was pretty close to autonomous, with its own laws, parliament, and even police force. For Idi Amin’s story, the most important kingdom is Buganda, encompassing the modern day capital of Kempala. During independence, each kingdom seems to want to go its own way, especially Buganda. There are also strong inter-ethnic tensions among the country’s many communities.
A weak electoral process brings Obote to power whom, because of the pre-existing kingdoms, has little in the way of actual power. His first move is to thus crush the ancient Kingdoms, famously so the kingdom of Buganda. Given these pre-existing forms of political organization and hostile neighbors, Obote’s government is a “nervous state”, paranoid of overthrow. With good reason, it turns out: he is ultimately overthrown by one of his generals, Idi Amin, while Obote is out of the country in 1971.
Second, that at the time of independence there are a number of South Asian people living in Uganda (analogous to other British colonies, such as Trinidad and Tobago). These communities skew better off, tending to own significant amounts of small capital, businesses, etc. There is deep resentment of this population: one of the earliest forms of popular mobilization around independence is a boycott of South Asian businesses. Idi Amin’s early rule will focus on expelling this community from Uganda as part of his so-called “Economic War”. This is, by the way, how we get Zohran Mandami as the likely mayor in NYC; his father is a famous Ugandan academic who was expelled during this time.
Third, while Idi Amin’s brutality is well known (the “Hitler of Africa”), I had less exposure to his efforts to make Uganda the frontline of anti-colonial struggle in Africa. A very interesting moment is that early on (even pre-coup, it seems) he is in close contact with Israel, who offer him training and support. But after a trip to Mecca in the 1970s he breaks off all contact with Israel and pivots to a Gaddafi-inflected pan-Africanism. He seems to wage very little actual war on this front, mostly a matter of presentation: author tells a story of Idi Amin training and arming fighters to go to South Africa / Rhodesia, but this is all for show: they are made to return weapons and even uniforms after the photo op. Culturally, Idi Amin’s regime will do a lot more: banning mini skirts, wigs, Evangelical Christianity, change the names of streets, etc.
In the end, Idi Amin’s regime ends when he invades neighboring Tanzania and the latter counter-mobilizes, invades Uganda, and unseats him, shocking everyone given Idi Amin’s grip on the country.
As with reading about any leader who use repression to close off imagined coups, one wonders to what extent the leader’s level of paranoia is warranted. Liberal-democratic re-tellings of these periods (thinking here of the Southern Cone countries, or the Soviet Union) tend to emphasize the “imagined” part: that the paranoia, fear of an internal threat, of wreckers, etc., is objectively overblown. But if you personally coup’d your predecessor, what else are you supposed to think?
This is a straightforward academic text. Every chapter could be a standalone article; each starts with an overview of the big picture takeaway; then a page break, the empirical content to support the takeaway; and then a page-break to conclusion. I will never understand why academic writing, supposedly aimed at an audience more attuned to difficult reading, traditionally spoon feeds the reader like this. That said, an interesting and worthwhile book about Uganda’s most famous leader. Less a comprehensive overview and more a series of chapters that each touch on a theme of his rule.
Here are some things that stood out. First, the fact that Uganda is composed of kingdoms, which persisted through British colonialism and into independence. Each kingdom was pretty close to autonomous, with its own laws, parliament, and even police force. For Idi Amin’s story, the most important kingdom is Buganda, encompassing the modern day capital of Kempala. During independence, each kingdom seems to want to go its own way, especially Buganda. There are also strong inter-ethnic tensions among the country’s many communities.
A weak electoral process brings Obote to power whom, because of the pre-existing kingdoms, has little in the way of actual power. His first move is to thus crush the ancient Kingdoms, famously so the kingdom of Buganda. Given these pre-existing forms of political organization and hostile neighbors, Obote’s government is a “nervous state”, paranoid of overthrow. With good reason, it turns out: he is ultimately overthrown by one of his generals, Idi Amin, while Obote is out of the country in 1971.
Second, that at the time of independence there are a number of South Asian people living in Uganda (analogous to other British colonies, such as Trinidad and Tobago). These communities skew better off, tending to own significant amounts of small capital, businesses, etc. There is deep resentment of this population: one of the earliest forms of popular mobilization around independence is a boycott of South Asian businesses. Idi Amin’s early rule will focus on expelling this community from Uganda as part of his so-called “Economic War”. This is, by the way, how we get Zohran Mandami as the likely mayor in NYC; his father is a famous Ugandan academic who was expelled during this time.
Third, while Idi Amin’s brutality is well known (the “Hitler of Africa”), I had less exposure to his efforts to make Uganda the frontline of anti-colonial struggle in Africa. A very interesting moment is that early on (even pre-coup, it seems) he is in close contact with Israel, who offer him training and support. But after a trip to Mecca in the 1970s he breaks off all contact with Israel and pivots to a Gaddafi-inflected pan-Africanism. He seems to wage very little actual war on this front, mostly a matter of presentation: author tells a story of Idi Amin training and arming fighters to go to South Africa / Rhodesia, but this is all for show: they are made to return weapons and even uniforms after the photo op. Culturally, Idi Amin’s regime will do a lot more: banning mini skirts, wigs, Evangelical Christianity, change the names of streets, etc.
In the end, Idi Amin’s regime ends when he invades neighboring Tanzania and the latter counter-mobilizes, invades Uganda, and unseats him, shocking everyone given Idi Amin’s grip on the country.
As with reading about any leader who use repression to close off imagined coups, one wonders to what extent the leader’s level of paranoia is warranted. Liberal-democratic re-tellings of these periods (thinking here of the Southern Cone countries, or the Soviet Union) tend to emphasize the “imagined” part: that the paranoia, fear of an internal threat, of wreckers, etc., is objectively overblown. But if you personally coup’d your predecessor, what else are you supposed to think?
December 29, 2025
It's fine.
This is not really a proper overview of Idi Amin and his reign as you can watch a 1 hour documentary and learn more from it. This book is about how history was forgotten. And how the population didn't rebel enough. How the self described African Hitler used the radio to entice people and win power then genocide his own population. He moved away from Israel and Britain and instead joined hands with Gaddafi and PLO suddenly supporting Muslim terrorists. Meaning Europe was now in much greater danger as Gaddafi blew up European planes and Idi Amin let West German and PLO terrorists hijack a plane and then separate Jews from the rest telling Israel they would kill all these Jews if Israel didn't force several European nations to free certain prisoners. Entebbe raid was staged by Israel and nearly all Jews freed.
Of course this is my outline. An outline NOT found in the book as it's about day to day life in Uganda. It's fine enough as I did understand old Uganda a bit better. Yet without an overview how will other readers learn from the book? Unless you already know all the geopolitics this will read a bit messy and confusing. Often he describes his own historical research and how they found documents. It's super fascinating at times yet one often waits around for the meaty parts and they never arrive. The Entebbe raid which was the key event alongside the Asians expulsion got a few pages. This is the stuff most readers want to explore as the raid is famous.
Basically, it's a shame. I think most readers are seeking out an overview first then we can give deeper. Yet this is the first search result so many read this and get confused. I too just gambled. I knew this wasn't fully what I was seeking yet I didn't find anything else.
This is not really a proper overview of Idi Amin and his reign as you can watch a 1 hour documentary and learn more from it. This book is about how history was forgotten. And how the population didn't rebel enough. How the self described African Hitler used the radio to entice people and win power then genocide his own population. He moved away from Israel and Britain and instead joined hands with Gaddafi and PLO suddenly supporting Muslim terrorists. Meaning Europe was now in much greater danger as Gaddafi blew up European planes and Idi Amin let West German and PLO terrorists hijack a plane and then separate Jews from the rest telling Israel they would kill all these Jews if Israel didn't force several European nations to free certain prisoners. Entebbe raid was staged by Israel and nearly all Jews freed.
Of course this is my outline. An outline NOT found in the book as it's about day to day life in Uganda. It's fine enough as I did understand old Uganda a bit better. Yet without an overview how will other readers learn from the book? Unless you already know all the geopolitics this will read a bit messy and confusing. Often he describes his own historical research and how they found documents. It's super fascinating at times yet one often waits around for the meaty parts and they never arrive. The Entebbe raid which was the key event alongside the Asians expulsion got a few pages. This is the stuff most readers want to explore as the raid is famous.
Basically, it's a shame. I think most readers are seeking out an overview first then we can give deeper. Yet this is the first search result so many read this and get confused. I too just gambled. I knew this wasn't fully what I was seeking yet I didn't find anything else.
January 20, 2026
just fully ignores the experiences of Ugandan Asians in favour of the economic war
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews