Part One

The Last King of Scotland opens with Nicholas Garrigan describing how he happened to become the personal physician to Idi Amin, president of Uganda in the 1970s. While Garrigan is serving as a physician at a "bush surgery" in the western Ugandan provinces, he is called to the scene of an automobile accident. Lying on the ground next to his wrecked Maserati is President Amin, who needs his wrist bandaged. A few months later, Garrigan is asked to come to the capital as Amin's personal physician. He complies because "you couldn't say no" to Amin.

Garrigan writes this account of his experiences, he says, "to provide a genuine eyewitness account" of the strange things that happened to him and to others during Amin's rule in Uganda. He explains how he decided to go to medical school and how his childhood love for adventure and interest in...