King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa

By Adam Hochschild

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, King Leopold’s Ghost is the true and haunting account of Leopold's brutal regime and its lasting effect on a ruined nation. With an introduction by award-winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver.

In the late nineteenth century, a time when Africa was being parcelled among European powers, King Leopold of Belgium seized vast, untapped territories around the Congo River. Under his brutal regime, resources were plundered, natives oppressed and populations halved. Amidst the corruption, Leopold maintained a façade of a compassionate leader.

In King Leopold's Ghost, author Adam Hochschild introduces us to a group of missionaries and idealists who, upon their arrival in Africa, found themselves in the middle of a horrifying holocaust. Their courage to stand against Leopold shines a light on this often overlooked chapter of history.

A devastating piece of African history, King Leopold's Ghost explores the grave cost paid by those silenced by colonial terror.

'All the tension and drama that one would expect in a good novel' - Robert Harris, author of Fatherland

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: May 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781529014617

Adam Hochschild

ADAM HOCHSCHILD is the author of eleven books. King Leopold’s Ghost was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as was To End All Wars. His Bury the Chains was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and PEN USA Literary Award. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Reviews for King Leopold's Ghost

[library_lin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Before reading this book, my knowledge of African history was scanty. I have read a few books on North Africa, but none on the history of the sub-Saharan continent. Adam Hochschild’s book, King Leopold’s Ghost, proved to be a startling introduction. First off, the book has a reputation for brutality. Before I began, people warned me to prepare myself. I don’t think anything could prepare someone for the horrors perpetrated on the people native to Africa by the European colonizers. The term “colonize” sounds so innocuous that it masks the violence of the process. Hochschild highlights King Leopold II, king of the small and relatively new country of Belgium. Leopold’s bottomless well of greed and ruthless ambition caused him to gain control, underhandedly, of the massive area of central Africa called the Congo. He didn’t share this wealth with his country. So, the people of Belgium didn’t even profit from any of his activities using slavery to gain riches from the sale of ivory and rubber at the beginning. This changed after the king died. To make it clear that terror and exploitation are not unique to Leopold or Belgium, Hochschild talks about violence perpetrated by Africans on other Africans before the Europeans arrived. He also touches on inhumanity demonstrated by other countries worldwide, but primarily by Europeans in their colonization of Africa and theft of its natural resources. He takes pains to discuss the complicity of the United States in similar outrages within its borders. People have told me that Hochschild cherry-picked his facts and that this book presents an unfair view of the place and the period. I find this difficult to believe. He provides his sources, and the sheer number of damning statistics, facts, and anecdotes cannot be denied. Though the story sickened me, I cannot discount it, and I am glad I read it. We need to know history, no matter how horrible it may have been. Looking at historical darkness in the heart of Africa should prompt us to search for traces of that darkness in ourselves because that’s the only way to ever rid ourselves of it.

[mbmackay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An outstanding book that clinically and calmly exposes the outrage of the Belgian King's appalling crimes in colonial Africa.Along with Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Alice Seeley Harris's photos of severed hands, this book should be required reading for all westerners so we never forget the worst aspects of European colonial history. While not all colonial leaders were as depraved as King Leopold, the colonial era was fundamentally founded on exploitation. The Belgians, in the Congo, merely took that exploitation to an extreme.

[theonearmedcrab · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Adam Hochschild concentrates on a specific period in Congo’s history in “King Leopold’s Ghost” (1998). After a brief introduction he describes how, thanks to the exploration and the later efforts of Henry Morton Stanley, the Congo became the personal property of the Belgian King – not the Belgian state, but the King, in a time when European powers were actively dividing up the African continent. And how, through forced labour and an incredibly cruel and haphazard system of punishments for the local population, the King managed to extract the riches of his back garden, first ivory and later rubber, for personal account. And how a small group of brave men, led by the Brit Edward Morel, unleashed a worldwide campaign not seen since the anti-slavery campaigns earlier in the 19th Century, to bring an end to this ruthless exploitation.Hochschild vividly describes the colonial singlemindedness and the associated horrors. But he also demonstrates how difficult it was to get other countries to respond to the allegations, and how the King time and again managed to exonerate himself by claiming the ideological high ground. Hochschild also points out how little the Belgians know about their colonial past, and how defensive they are when confronted. It is only in the last chapter that he remarks that it was easy to single out Belgium at the time, a small and unimportant country, but that exactly the same colonial practices, equally cruel, were committed by all the other powers with colonies in Central Africa.

[castlelass · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

King Leopold II of Belgium managed to convince the world (for a while) that he was a humanitarian and philanthropist. Meanwhile, he was extracting the riches of the Congo for personal gain and ruthlessly exploiting the Congolese, with the death toll eventually estimated at ten million people. This book provides a history of the Congo from pre-colonial times through Mobutu’s regime. Through the efforts George Washington Williams, Rev. William Sheppard, E.D. Morel, and Roger Casement, the abuses became widely known and Leopold was forced to relinquish control to Belgium. These main paid a high price for their activism in the area of human rights.

“The Congo reform movement had two achievements that lasted far beyond its own time. First…it put a remarkable amount of information on the historical record. And there it remains, despite the strenuous efforts of Leopold and his admirers, then and now, to burn it, to ignore it, to distort it with mythologizing. That record of truth matters, especially for a continent whose history is otherwise so filled with silences. [Second]… among its supporters, it kept alive a tradition, a way of seeing the world, a human capacity for outrage at pain inflicted on another human being, no matter whether that pain is inflicted on someone of another color, in another country, at another end of the earth.”

This book is an engagingly written, logically organized history that provides a revealing analysis of the colonization of the Congo, and the oppression of its inhabitants. Hochschild relates Leopold’s activities in the Congo to the larger picture of other countries’ exploitation of Africa. He also gives the reader a good idea of why this part of history had previously been largely forgotten (or covered up).

This is the type of history book that reads as a story of man’s inhumanity to man. It is meticulously footnoted, and the author has attempted to use primary sources as much as possible. His only regret is that there is such limited source material from the Congolese tribes. The photos are heart-breaking. Highly recommended.

[thewestwing-864351 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Though a horrifying history, it's an amazing read. So well researched and very engaging. I'd highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in African history, colonial history and human rights.

[colligan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well, that was a depressing but very worthwhile read. As with many (even educated) Caucasians, I knew little specific about the horror that was the colonization of Africa. It's something that should be taught but typically isn't. The reality is sad, painful, and infuriating to read. What’s even more painful to realize is that the genocide of the natives peoples of North America would likely tell a similar tale if chronicled in equal detail. It seems racscism, greed, and cruelty have been the lasting legacy of the "white" race. Reparations alone will not wipe away this horror. Education, apology, and proactive steps to atone for this and avoid future occurrences are minimum starting points.The author rightly notes the heroic actions of some to end these atrocities. But those efforts, as worthwhile as they were, in no way outweigh the tragic impact of this history. The book left me more than a little cynical about the potential of our species. Left me thinking that fighting for justice is the only human thing we can do. But one must do so knowing full well our actions may never overcome the evil we fight. None-the-less, fight we must. A book not to be ignored.

[ericcostello-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sharp and pungent account of the colonization and exploitation of the Belgian Congo by King Leopold II, who to say the least comes across as a conniving hypocrite in this account. Little wonder it isn't popular in Belgium, but the author does a good job in marshaling the facts to argue his case. With millions dead, directly or indirectly, this is one of the forgotten demographic disasters of the colonial era. Recommended.

[jscape2000 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the best non-fiction I've read since The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which means it's one of the top histories I've read in my life. It taught me a history I was only passingly familiar with, and it examined the legacy of slavery in a way that was engaging: not overwhelming, not oversimplifying. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. Read it now.

[emresevinc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Exterminate all the brutes! ... said no colonialised victim I guess. And even if some of them did, could we accuse them of savagery? In case of Congolese, I think we couldn't do that easily I guess.Some pages of this book was a very difficult read, not because of the language, but because of details of the atrocities committed by Belgians, as well as other colonialists. Before that book, I only had a very vague idea about what Leopold II of Belgium did in Congo. I didn't have a good idea about the unbelievable greed he nurtured throughout his life, and the havoc it caused on about 10 million people of Congo in only a few decades.My path to this book started with the famous movie "Apocalypse Now" which was followed by Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Then a friend of mine shared an old article from The New Yorker magazine (thanks Baybars!), an article written by Hochschild, that tried to track and identify the real-life "Mr. Kurtz". Finally, I got my hands on this book of Hochschild, and met not only the people that did more than inspire Conrad for his Mr. Kurtz, but also others whose cold brutality knew almost no boundaries.The book compiles cold, hard facts and puts them into a perspective and great narrative. In a very readable manner, the reader realizes how the very strong drive for more and more profits lead to brutal exploitation, torture, and murder. The death toll is of genocidal proportions, yet this is not a genocide, all the big players are in it only for the money. The direct and indirect death of millions of people of Congo is "just" an unfortunate side effect, justified in devilish ways using religion, ideology of superiority, bringing civilization to the savages, etc.But tragedy on this scale is also accompanied by heroes of unshakable will and integrity: I'm really glad to read the larger-than-life stories of E.D. Morel, and his "partner" Casement, among others. They deserve to be much more famous, because they are great examples of how to defend the basic rights of humanity against all odds. To be fair, there are also a few Belgians, noble in their efforts to do "the right thing" and bring some justice, to the extent it is possible at all in this huge mess.Finally, as Hochschild himself admits, the voice of people of Congo isn't heard much throughout the pages. This, after the horrific acts of terror themselves, is probably the saddest aspect of his piece of history.My understanding of Belgium's colonialism has been deeply enhanced thanks to this terrific book, and I'll continue to observe recent campaigns by Belgians, such as Sorry is a Start (WHO CAN FIND THE RIGHT WORDS TO APOLOGISE TO THE CONGO?).If you are also curious how immense cruelty can be caused not by pathological sadism, but by simple greed for more money and power, put into a systematic form, this is one of the most striking books to read, not only for understanding history better, but also shedding a light on today's struggles.

[breic-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read Hochschild's "Bury the Chains" last year, and wasn't very impressed; it was too padded. This book, in contrast, has a much more interesting story, and finds a better balance between characters and events, and between details and narrative. Knowing nothing of the story going into it, the facts were revelatory. And the characters are fascinating. It is quite a page-turner. I was bothered that Hochschild too frequently shows his own bias. Certain characters are the heroes and others the villains, and Hochschild is too willing to overlook the flaws of the heroes while imputing motives to the villains. Several times a hero and a villain will do the same thing, but in different chapters, and yet Hochschild's descriptions will be night and day. This was unnecessary. It is also unfortunate that we are missing the sources to get at most of the story.

[patl_53 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Warning: Deeply dark, depressing, powerful. This is the story of the European colonization of Africa, especially the Belgian colonization of the Congo. It reveals the massive slave trade which was created, the impact to the region's peoples and resources, and sets the ground for the current ongoing dark state. It's the kind of book I didn't enjoy reading, but it moved me deeply and changed me. (Warning: Gruesome details. Photos of maimed slaves. Will mess up a student's ideas about First World nations bringing light and prosperity to subject peoples)

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

History of the massive white violence in the Belgian Congo (and surrounds) that claimed ten million lives at the turn of the twentieth century in search of profit and control. It’s a chilling story, including cautionary elements about Leopold’s excellent press manipulation, as well as some significant heroes, including an African-American preacher/activist and a shipping accountant-turned-activist who noticed that cargoes weren’t going out with enough trade goods to account for the riches they brought back.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book has been on my to-read list since it was published, about twenty years ago. The history is horrific, though better known now thanks to Hochschild and a few other brave researchers, but it should be even more widely known than it is, especially the stories of the men and women who courageously took on a monarch and a host of commercial interests in order to combat slavery and injustice. Although the events chronicled happened a century and more ago, they reverberate today. Unfortunately, slavery and torture and death in the interest of profits continue to plague humankind. Bravo to Adam Hochschild for holding this mirror to us all!

[miaculpa-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

King Leopold II of Belgium was one callous S.O.B. and "King Leopold's Ghost" gives us plenty of evidence to back this up. Leopold wanted a huge colony that he could make whopping great wads of cash from. That opportunity came along with the Belgian Congo, and Leopold ruthlessly exploited the area, and its people for the riches that ivory, and later rubber, brought. Hochschild does an amazing job covering the Belgian Congo's creation, existence and finally the move from personal asset of Leopold to actual colony of Belgium. Along the way we meet a swathe of people from writer Joseph Conrad to explorer Henry Stanley to Sir Roger Casement and more. We also get to meet, if briefly, geographical oddities like the Lado Enclave and see how it all washes out (spoiler alert: great for Leopold, poorly for just about everyone else).

[kaitanya64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Essential history of the horror of Congolese history in colonial times. The King of Belgium wanted to make his country a colonial power. At the same time, the boom in demand for rubber created a market for exactly the product that he could "harvest" from the area around the Congo river. King Leopold ended up with a reputation as a humanitarian for "suppressing the slave trade" as well as making a fortune off of rubber. 10 million Congolese ended up dead.

[widsith_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

‘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 were no picnic for the other half.Hochschild's readability, though, rests on a novelistic tendency to cast characters squarely as heroes or villains. Even physical descriptions and reported speech are heavily editorialised: Henry Morton Stanley ‘snorts’ or ‘explodes’, Leopold II ‘schemes’, while of photographs of the virtuous campaigner ED Morel, we are told that his ‘dark eyes blazed with indignation’. This stuff weakens rather than strengthens the arguments and I could have done without it. Similarly, frequent references to Stalin or the Holocaust leave a reader with the vague idea that Leopold was some kind of genocidal ogre; in fact, his interest was in profits, not genocide, and his attitude to the Congolese was not one of extermination but ‘merely’ one of complete unconcern.Perhaps most unfortunate of all, the reliance on written records naturally foregrounds the colonial administrators and Western campaigners, and correspondingly – as Hochschild recognises in his afterword – ‘seems to diminish the centrality of the Congolese themselves’. This is not a problem one finds with David van Reybrouck's Congo: The Epic History of a People, where the treatment of the Free State is shorter but feels more balanced. (Van Reybrouck, incidentally, regards Hochschild's account as ‘very black and white’ and refers ambiguously to its ‘talent for generating dismay’.)For all these problems, though, this is a book that succeeds brilliantly in its objective, which was to raise awareness of a period that was not being much discussed. It remains one of the few popular history books to have genuinely brought something out of the obscurity of academic journals and into widespread popular awareness, and it's often eye-opening in the details it uncovers about one of the most appalling chapters in colonial history. The success is deserved – it's a very emotional and necessary corrective to what Hochschild identifies as the ‘deliberate forgetting’ which so many colonial powers have, consciously or otherwise, taken part in.

[palu-24 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Easy reading and a very well structured book. The writer enriched the historical characters describing curiosities and bizarre facts about their life, e.g. the heroic explorer Stanley and the Belgian King Leopold that were described not only by historical facts but also using information from other sources that help us (the reader) to draw a better personality picture of them.
A great read, even though we know from the start that the author was determined to prove his point of view on King Leopold

[briandrewz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A horrific account of one man's greed. King Leopold II of Belgium seemed to be after a colony from day one. He found it in the Congo. The book talks about Leopold's unhappiness with his domestic life, and his seemingly incessant need to make up for it with his colonial venture. He literally tried to dry up the Congo's reserves of ivory and rubber, all at the cost of the Congolese people, who suffered starvation, severed hands, death, and other horrible things.It's a fascinating look at the life of an unsatisfied man and his mission to satisfy his money lust.

[ted_newell-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The actual historical version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. My family lived in Belgium and our Gr 6 class went to the Museum of the Congo, Brussels, and saw its shrunken heads -- were fascinated. Horrified now I read of the real Kurtz in Hochschild's book.

[librarycin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the late 19th century and early 20th century King Leopold II of Belgium ruled the Congo as a Belgian colony. But really, he ruled it for himself, not for Belgium. The greedy man was desperate for a colony, something bigger than his own small country. When he colonized the Congo, he wanted everything he could get, initially from the ivory, then later from the wild rubber trees. He enslaved the Congolese, who were treated terribly. However, Leopold was charming and was able to hide much of what was going on there from the rest of the world. Bit by bit, a few Europeans and Americans could see what was happening while they were there, and brought that information to the rest of the world. Wow, to compare to wider-known atrocities, I thought there were shades of both American slavery and Nazi Germany in Leopold's Congo. It was quite horrifying. I will admit to finding the start a bit slow, as it was more about Leopold and the politics of finding an African colony that he could rule. I occasionally lost interest there. But, it got more interesting as time went on and other people were finding out what was happening. It was originally written in 1998, but my ebook had a 2005 update.

[bowedbookshelf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book begins with the assertion of evil. It made me uneasy. I prefer to hear the facts and draw my own conclusions. But I felt far less willing to grant King Leopold’s side another instant of attention after realizing that the facts had been obscured for a century or more by repression of documents relating to the case in Belgian state archives. Better that we finally uncover the ugly truth and take its lesson: unbridled greed may be the ugliest, most unforgivable, most unnecessary sin of all.

How can we not have known this horrible history? It happened only a hundred years ago. Though I am embarrassed I did not know the anguished history and perpetuation of evil in the Congo, I stand in good company. Hochschild tells us of a Belgian diplomat serving in the 1970’s Congo who learned of the atrocities by a chance remark from a chieftain recalling “the first time” of rubber collection. This diplomat-turned-historian, Jules Marchal, spent decades after his retirement from civil service investigating and documenting King Leopold’s personal fiefdom in the Congo and its long list of crimes there at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

What does become amply clear from Hochschild’s account is how it is possible to mount a resistance to a great evil. Resistance requires exceptional people willing to bear witness, but also organization and persistence. Edmund Dene Morel, the shipping clerk who recognized in the 1890’s what was happening in the Congo, immediately called out the injustices he saw there and never hesitated in his mission to publicize it in the years that followed. Fortunately, he was an articulate man with a convincing speaking style and he had enormous drive. He managed to gather like-minded folk to himself to voice a larger protest.

The life of Irishman Roger Casement, the gay man knighted by the Queen for his work as a diplomat and later hanged by Britain as a traitor to the crown for his work as an Irish patriot, stands as an example of the strange dissociation countries in power display when someone challenges their economic and political interests. I fell in love with him a little, Sir Roger Casement, as a man of great courage and vision: he saw what men are and did not despair, though one might say that, in the end, he died of it.

Black Americans who spent their adult lives speaking out against the horror happening in Africa, the Reverend William Henry Sheppard and George Washington Williams, have finally found their way back into history. Many Christian missionaries, though notably, not Catholic missionaries, did their part in publicizing crimes in pursuit of endless demand for rubber.

What I liked most about the book was the way Hochschild brought us past the period of the Congo revelations to the present day, telling us how we could have been ignorant of the time and the period. He followed the lives of Morel and Chapman to their ends, and introduced us to Ambassador Marchal of Belgium. He follows the Congo after Leopold through its Belgian colony status to the demand for self-rule and the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first legally-elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He tells us of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, Congolese President who continued crimes against his country that Leopold had begun, this time with American support.

I began to realize that some of the surviving chiefs of Leopold’s crimes were sometimes collaborators. Their behaviors have been perpetuated over the generations until there is nothing but misery left in that place. Now I understand better how a country so rich in natural resources could be so socially impoverished. The crimes continue to the present. What can be the solution to this kind of moral destitution?

I listened to the Random House Audio of this title, read by Geoffrey Howard.

[japaul22 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book deals with the brutal colonization of the Congo by the Belgian King Leopold in the late 1800s-early 1900s. This is a period in history that I knew next to nothing about. Most of the slavery, killing, and mutilation of the Congo people and their culture came through the world's craving for rubber. This is yet another instance of extreme brutality and decimation of an entire population in the quest for personal gain, masked by humanitarian intentions, in this case "saving" the Congo people from the Arab slave traders. What a joke.This is an important book to read to embark on an understanding of the problems the African continent is still trying to recover from due to colonization. I found it especially depressing because I'm not naive enough to think that humans have changed so much in the past hundred years that this kind of thing still isn't going on in areas of the world.This is a well written book on a horrifying topic.

[bradkautz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Among the legacies of the 20th century are mass-murder of a nearly unimaginable scale. Hitler and the Holocaust, Stalin and the Gulag, Mao and the Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot and the Killing Fields, the Armenian genocide and America's genocide, abortion. In King Leopold's Ghost we see the progenitor to all of these save the last one, the single-minded drive of a single person to be the undisputed master of their particular part of the world. Adam Hochschild has written a masterful account of the story of the acquisition, plunder and, ultimately, disposition of the Congo, by King Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold, the constitutionally-limited ling of a small country sought the prestige and wealth that could come through acquiring a colony, and so he set out to do so. Patiently, with stealth, subterfuge, and much determination, he gained, for himself, the country presently known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Your read that correctly. Leopold gained the Congo for himself.In the process of acquiring the Congo he did it in such a way that it was his personal property. In as many ways as his power was limited in Belgium, it was unlimited in the Congo. Once the Congo was in his possession he systematically exploited its wealth for his own personal gain. He started with ivory and then made a transition to rubber, as the rubber tire was invented and the world-wide appetite for rubber exploded.The people who ultimately bore the cost of Leopold's enterprises were the native peoples inhabiting the land. They suffered in innumerable ways, which are described at length, resulting in a number of things, two of which stand out. The first is the death, either directly or indirectly, of 10 million people during the 20+ years of Leopold's control. The second was the destruction of any kind of sustainable system of government, a problem that has continued through to the end of the 20th century.Hochschild tells a compelling story, one that has its share of heroes, particularly those people who were able to discern that Leopold was building his empire on slave labor, and who built an international coalition that eventually wrested the Congo from Leopold's hands. This is an outstanding book, telling a little-known story of tragedy whose effects linger today. Leopold is long-gone, but the shadow of his ghost remains.

[urbandale · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good history, bad ideology. Loses half a star for equivocating Hitler to Stalin and talking about Stalin's 'man-made purges', loses half a star for calling for western military intervention in the Congo.

[paulagraph · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a difficult history, meticulously researched & well-written. The time: roughly 1859-1924, but with continuities that extend backward and forward from those dates.
Yet another instance of gross greed, power hungering and mongering, and heinous acts on the part of both individuals and groups. Once again, no one is truly innocent, although some are certainly more bloodthirsty, greedy and cruel than others.
The heroes of this history: E.D. Morel, Roger Casement, William Shepard & George Washington Williams--none without flaws, but all with a well-developed sense of and commitment to moral outrage in conjunction with action to remedy the causes of that outrage.
The only women of significance: E.D. Morel's wife Mary & the missionary as witness and photographer Alice Seeley Harris.

One of the book's main themes is "the politics of forgetting." How what went on in the Congo when it was King Leopold II's private kingdom to pillage was so readily brushed under the carpet in Belgium and elsewhere, once it was wrested from him. In part, because similar abuses, even if conducted with lesser intensity, continued when Congo became a Belgian colony & then an independent nation ruled by the autocratic Mobutu after the U.S. & its allies supported the assassination of Lumumba. W.G. Sebald's books concern themselves with a similar politics and process of forgetting, the one that took place in Germany after WWII. In that instance, in the years immediately following the war, Germans decided to "move on" & "forget" both what they had done (the Holocaust) and what had been done to them (Dresden, etc.).

The history of the Congo is not a happy one, then or since. During Leopold's reign the population was decimated by half-an estimated 10 million people were murdered, starved, worked to death or maimed (there was a widespread practice of severing hands from victims both dead and alive & the application of the chicotte in floggings that often resulted in death).

Hochschild (& the reader) obviously greatly admires the heroes mentioned above, sees them as role models of energy, commitment & moral outrage translated into action & considers them & the organizations they founded as models for present-day Human Rights & liberation movements as well as such organizations as Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders. On the other hand, he admits that it is difficult to assess whether or not their efforts were substantively "successful" where the Congo itself is concerned. Congo, and much of Africa, is as readily pillaged today as it was then. People and environment, in dire straits, remain vulnerable to the Market & to the greed and political maneuvering of both post-colonial despots and international political and economic interests.

[jspringbrinkley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very informative, I can't believe I had never heard of this before! People still gasp about the holocaust (as they should) but why are other vast human tragedies swept under the rug, or fail to capture the lasting eye of the public?

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the best examples of narrative history I have encountered. The author does an excellent job of blending the larger picture of the Congo with the individual stories and motivations of the explorers, monarchs, laborers, politicians, lobbyists, and activists to create a rich story of the Belgian Congo. Recognizing the limitations of this story (almost no African accounts of this period exist), a tale of cruelty and greed emerges, as King Leopold II of Belgium obsessively sought a colony of his own and then proceeded to plunder the Congo of huge amounts of wealth once he obtained. An excellent work of history.

[apurdie-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really excellent book that I have wanted to read since seeing an excerpt of the documentary of the same name in school. Hochschild tells the fascinating, horrifying tale of the economic pillaging of the Central African and fleshes out the larger-than-life players in its inception and eventual demise: the intrepid explorer, the Irish patriot, the , and of course the scheming, vainglorious king whose greed sparked the entire endeavor. The end chapters of this book touch on some of the problems that Western involvement has caused in the region in the twentieth century post-independence, but more importantly the provide insight into why so many African nations are economically and politically disadvantaged- King Leopold's destructive legacy is one that should not be overlooked.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Was very informative history of imperialism in Africa and the part United Stated played in the seventies. I read this as a companion read with Poisonwood Bible, Heart of Darkness, and Things Fall Apart. Humans can be quite ruthless when interacting with each other.

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A thoroughly disturbing account of Leopold II's "adventures" in the Congo. Extremely well-researched and written in a clear, journalistic style. It gets a bit sensationalistic at times, but on the whole I generally approved of the writing. Hochschild's done a great service by bringing the depredations committed in the Congo to a wide audience, and documenting the long campaign to bring the atrocities to light at the end of the 19th century.Hard to read, but I would have been very concerned were it any less so.