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The conflict in Cote d'Ivoire has the characteristics of Shakespearean drama - the key figures are larger than life, each with a fatal flaw, and the self-destructive path each is following is clearly visible to all but themselves. Mike McGovern's book gives full play to the vibrant personalities involved, from Felix Houphouet-Boigny, 'The Ram', who cannily managed Ivorian politics for the country's first 33 years of independence, to the contemporary First Lady Simone Gbagbo. However, the analysis is of the dynamics in place that give certain predictability to the actions of each of the key figures in the drama. Does the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire derive from 'real' problems such as inter-ethnic competition within a shrinking economy, or is it in some way a series of man-made disasters, a kind of grotesque misunderstanding created out of hate-filled rhetoric? The answer proposed throughout is that since the 1990s politicians in Cote d'Ivoire have concentrated on perfecting the art of 'instrumentalising realities', or manipulating and amplifying existing tensions and resentments, and turning them into political capital.