Books: Saving the Giant

THE BROTHERS'WAR Biafra and Nigeria

by JOHN DE ST. JORRE 437 pages. Houghton Mifflin. $10.

"The trouble with Nigeria," Sir Alec Douglas-Home once observed, "is that it is so complicated." Certainly this was true of the Nigerian civil war (1967-70), which was perceived by many foreigners as a brushfire rebellion in a barbarian land where thousands of children were being allowed to starve to death. In truth, of course, it was a modern war that very nearly destroyed Africa's most populous and in many ways most promising nation. In this first complete account of that war, London Observer Correspondent John de St. Jorre...

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