What debt do first-world, colonialist nations owe to nations that they victimized in the past? Whose interests should the UN, the ICC, and other NGOs represent? How does the media shape our perception of humanitarian crises though language, and accepting the narrative that governments and well-funded aid groups hire expensive PR firms to write and broadcast?

These are the core questions this book is built around, but not in an academic or philosophical way. This book is tough. Hayden is fearless and confrontational, and sets out to shock the reader into understanding the nuts and bolts of how people from Africa, desperate to find safety, are ground up and spit out by the countries and organizations that purport to do the most.

It’s horrifying and damning. I almost gave up on it a couple of times, because it was sickening to read, in the same way that Shake Hands with the Devil was.

I’ll never forget this book. It’s eye-opening and upsetting, and absolutely critical to understanding the world we live in.