Gen. Romeo Dallaire's book is a wake-up call to the fact we still haven't learned anything. George Santayana, way back in 1905, warned the world that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." In excruciating detail, the general recounts one of the most harrowing experiences in recent memory and the fact that the world turned a completely blind eye to this latter-day Holocaust. Surely, Dallaire suggests, the world should have known what was to come after the assassination which started the calamity.

By far the most chilling recollection is his conversation with someone who told him that it would take the deaths of at least 85,000 to even consider sending ONE peacekeeper from that country. 800,000 wound up dying. To think that but for the presence of just 10 American soldiers the massacre could have been stopped is not only chilling but demonstrates the incredible amount of racism that still pervades some quarters within the US government -- and even the US media, which gave scant at best attention to this tragedy.

Dallaire concedes that the American serviceman who was killed in Mogadishu and dragged through the streets in the now infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident a few months before may have given the Pentagon cold feet about Africa. But the larger point he makes is this: would the world reaction have been any different if Rwanda had oil, or gold, or some other exploitable non-renewable natural resource, rather than its most precious wonder (other than humans): The still very threatened "Gorillas in the Mist" for which Dian Fossey shed her blood more than a decade earlier?

Gen. Dallaire later relates how the severe depression he had afterwards from witnesses the carnage, and also from his failure to prevent the murders of 10 soliders under his command, nearly drove him to suicide. He is now one of the world's most forceful advocates in international affairs, and this book is just the start of his new career in that direction. "Shake Hands with the Devil" is definitely required reading for every world leader and anyone else who is still not convinced by Santayana's dictum or who could care less, just as their and our ancestors didn't give a damn during the Holocaust et sequens.

Dallaire conveys the crushing sense of responsibility he continues to feel for failing to protect the 800,000 who died in Rwanda, but that weight flows through him to the reader as each of us bears blame in the failure of humanity he describes. This book forces a wrenching change of world view.

Dallaire's writing is natural and simple. Though some scenes are disturbing, he doesn't rely on gore to exact an emotional response. It's important to read this book.