Book Review: Don Cheadle and John Prendergast, Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond

Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond is a call to activism; it is not a scholarly work, and it does not present itself as such. What it does best is provide a solid overview of the anti-genocide activist movement that has been created as a result of the ongoing crisis in Darfur, Sudan. What it does not do, though it tries, is to offer any solid answers as to how genocide can be stopped. This is not surprising, given that the first author is a Hollywood actor (Don Cheadle starred in the feature film Hotel Rwanda). That said, a book of greater substance could have been expected from the second author, John Prendergast, a long-time associate of the highly regarded International Crisis Group and a former official in the Clinton Administration (1992–2000). But both authors are obviously concerned and passionate about the ongoing crisis in Darfur and are intent on doing their utmost to rally citizens to apply pressure on the United States and the international community to act whenever genocide’s ugly face appears on the horizon