A little over a decade after a terrifying genocide left a million people dead, Rwanda has recovered enough to become a tourist destination in central Africa. As veteran journalist Stephen Kinzer reports in his new book A Thousand Hills, Rwanda is an orderly, peaceful, and economically developing oasis in an otherwise strife-torn region. Kinzer points to Rwandan leader Paul Kagame as the prime mover behind this transformation. Ever the cautious journalist, Kinzer knows the pitfalls of this great-man approach to history. “Naïve outsiders, eager for success stories from Africa, are quick to praise any promising leader. Sometimes they are too quick,” he writes. And indeed, fellow journalist Mark Fritz took Kinzer to task in The Washington Post for being too quick himself.