ABSTRACT
What drives history? Is it politics or policy? Economics or epidemiology? Industry or ideas? Or could it simply be people? Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuściński tells the story of the Angolan Civil War. At a turning point in the war, one of the factions – the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) – controlled the capital and the opposing faction controlled the surrounding countryside. Kapuściński describes the reliance of the MPLA on two individuals: a pilot who flies their only plane and an engineer who supplies water to the city. If either of them is killed, the war will be over. This is just one example of individuals having an enormous influence on events. As de Bellaigue writes, ‘so much for the inevitability of history’ (1).
