King Leopold's Ghost

Posted on 16 May 2017 by Adam Hochschild

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated King Leopold s Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II With great power and compassion, King Leopold s Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo too long forgotten onto the conscience of the West Best Download [ King Leopold's Ghost ] by [ Adam Hochschild ] – kino-fada.fr A few things First, I have read widely about Mao s Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward 40 to 70 million dead , Stalin s purges and programs of collectivization 20 million dead and Hitler s genocide 11 million dead I am largely unshockable However, the avarice and deceit of King Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo 15 million dead has been something of a revelation I...The Congo in Leopold s mind was not the one of starving porters, raped hostages, emaciated rubber slaves, and severed hands It was the empire of his dreams, with gigantic trees, exotic animals, and inhabitants grateful for his wise rule Instead of going there, Leopold brought the Congo that Congo, the theatrical production of his imagination to himself Ki...The book was written 20 years ago, and yet, it is so eye opening The theme has not been covered enough My idea of atrocities committed in the Congo in the second half of the 19th century werethan basic and narrowed to Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness, which I read and now should re read but didn t take too much interest in Conrad s time in the Congo, which was a mistake Author who undertakes a most difficult task to write about crimes against humanities term used for the first ti The book was written 20 years ago, and yet, it is so eye opening The theme has not been covered enough My idea of atrocities committed in the Congo in the second half of the 19th century werethan basic and narrowed to Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness, which I read and now should re read but didn t take too much interest in Conrad s time in the Congo, wh...This is a remarkably painful book There are a number of estimates given throughout of the extent of the extermination of people in the Congo under King Leopold the author says perhaps 8 10 million people, but he also quotes someone who believes it might have been as many as 13 million people This does not ...The best non fiction book I ve ever read The hyphenated title on the book is a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa and that sums it up very well Such horrific treatment including brutal maiming and killing of workers, including children, who refused to work for King ...This work of popular history does a great job of bringing to life the story of King Leopold of Belgium s orchestration of a private empire in the Congo near the end of the 19th century His greed driven campaign presaged the 20th century shenanigans with its use of political intrigue, bribery, media manipulation, and lies The popular explorer Henry Morton Stanley was wooe...Exterminate all the brutes KurtzA very readable summary of one of the first real international human rights campaigns, a campaign focussed on that vast slab of central Africa once owned, not by Belgium, but personally by the Belgian King The Congo Free State was a handy microcosm of colonialism in its most extreme and polarised form political control subsumed into corporate control, natural resources removed wholesale, local peoples dispossessed of their lands, their freedom, their lives Exterminate all the brutes KurtzA very readable summary of one of the first real international human rights campaigns, a campaign focussed on that vast slab of central Africa once owned, not by Belgium, but personally by the Belgian King The Congo Free State was a handy microcosm of colonialism in its most extreme and polarised form political control subsumed into corporate control, natural resources removed wholesale, local peoples dispossessed of their lands, their freedom, their lives To ensure the speediest monetisation of the region s ivory and rubber, about half its population some ten million people was worked to death or otherwise killed And things...Phenomenal book I can t recommend this enough Impeccably researched and told in a narrative style that is incredibly accessible Hochschild focuses on a small cast of characters, follows their stories in such an intimate way that the history and the story come to life in a novelesque way I don t know much about colonialism This book was a great way to get a sense of it and its exploitative evils and how imperialistic capitalism can bring out the absolute worst in human beings The cool thing Phenomenal book I can t recommend this enough Impeccably researched and told in a narrative style that is incredibly accessible Hochschild focuses on a small cast of characters, follows their stories in such an intimate way that the history and the story come to life in a novelesque way I don t know much about colonialism This book was a great way to get a sense of it and its exploitative evils and how imperialistic capitalism can bring out the absolute worst in human beings The cool thing is there is a counter to this, there are people who comba...A stunning and fearsome book, bristling with focused rage at one of the great ignored evils of the 19th century This is not merely a catalog of horror, but also a history of the precursor to the modern human rights movement, revealing the sacrifices and valiant efforts of those wh...Horrifying story, rivetingly told Regrettably, much of my reading of history has been centered primarily on the history of Europe and of the U.S Hochschild s account of Belgium s exploitation of the Congo left me appalled Despite the accounts of some t...

English
16 May 2017

Adam Hochschild