Currently reading the book for the second time (as to keep up with the names and specifics). It's truly a wonder how much the book covers: politics, ethnic hatred, media manipulation, the UN (and it's bungling of the situation), and it also provides a strategic and tactical analysis of the Rwandan disaster.
Personally, heavy reading or not, I think it should a be a mandatory grade 11 book (or grade 12 outside of Quebec). Senator Dallaire'swriting style is very inviting while at the same time haunting to the bone.
After reading this book, you feel like beating any critics of Dallaire's handling of the situation with a cast-iron pole...it is an amazing story of dedication to humanity despite being low on international co-operation, vehicles, troops, ammunition, fuel and other shortfalls. It also shows how a soldier is valuable for what he (or she, however, there were no female soldiers mentionned directly by Senator Dallaire) has inside them not neccesarily how much advanced equipment or wealth their nation has. After all, the Tunisians and the Ghanians, in my opinion, are the best portrayed contingents throughout the book. For the Belgians and the Bangladeshis, there seems to be a love-hate relationship between the Force Commander and the contingents. I found it quite shocking that a modern country such as Belgium could still have formally racist policies (ie, the Belgians not being allowed to sleep in tents in font of Africans).
It also gives a new point of view on rebel armies, which seem to be generally portyed in a negative light. The RPF are shown as a rebel army, but a brilliantly-led and well diciplined army at that, a rebel army that genuinely tried stop the genocide. Perhaps it was for this reason that rebels are more positively portrayed by the media about the Darfur crisis...
Definately a good read, I reccomend that anyone who hasn't read it reads it, and anyone who has read it long enough ago for it to not get repetitive should read it again.