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eBook, 400 pages
English language
Published March 9, 2020 by HMH Books.
King Leopold’s Ghost
A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
4 stars
(33 reviews)
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 …
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.
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Martin Kopischke reviewed King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
Still a must-read, 20 years later
4 stars
When King Leopold’s Ghost was published two decades ago, its only briefly blipped on my radar, leaving me with the vague impression that of the hells European colonisation created in Africa, Léopold’s (and subsequently Belgium’s) Congo was located in the deepest circles. Historical colonialism, however, beyond being bad on principle, was not an issue the liberal German Left was worried about at the end of the 20th century – in part because sympathy for the post colonial struggle was de rigueur, in part out of the entirely unfounded feeling that we Germans got out of that particular pickle just in time.
Fast forward 20 years, and Germany is beginning to acknowledge its colonial past, leaving no way to dismiss the story of the colonial Congo as some other nation’s problem. Colonialism, it turns out, was hellish everywhere, with the German colonies no exception (the chicotte, the rhino hide …
When King Leopold’s Ghost was published two decades ago, its only briefly blipped on my radar, leaving me with the vague impression that of the hells European colonisation created in Africa, Léopold’s (and subsequently Belgium’s) Congo was located in the deepest circles. Historical colonialism, however, beyond being bad on principle, was not an issue the liberal German Left was worried about at the end of the 20th century – in part because sympathy for the post colonial struggle was de rigueur, in part out of the entirely unfounded feeling that we Germans got out of that particular pickle just in time.
Fast forward 20 years, and Germany is beginning to acknowledge its colonial past, leaving no way to dismiss the story of the colonial Congo as some other nation’s problem. Colonialism, it turns out, was hellish everywhere, with the German colonies no exception (the chicotte, the rhino hide whip that became eponymous with forced labour and cruelty in Congo, had a name in the German colonies where it was in use, too: Nilpferdpeitsche), and much of Hochschild’s account of the horrific slaughter of about ten million people through, as a consequence of, or as an incidental of violent resource extraction feels like a shameful past we Europeans have in common. Léopold II, Roi des Belges, might have been a particularly greedy bugger, but he was not doing anything much other, less unsavoury, characters, didn’t.
All of which is to say that Hochschild’s book still hits all the right notes long after its original publication. Although not an academic work, it is thoroughly researched, well balanced, always aware of its limitations and blind spots, and so superbly written you will sometimes forget that the breathless yarn you are reliving is one of something that, half a century before the Nuremberg Trials, a prescient observer called “a crime against humanity“.
enzyme reviewed King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
Review of 'King Leopold’s Ghost' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
An engaging, captivating, necessary story about the ravages of colonialism under the Belgian King. Hochschild ties together numerous angles from the key players in the story, with evidence spanning over a century and including how this story impacts the global south today. Reading this book should give you a righteous anger to demand more to ensure the rights of your global neighbors cease being destroyed, and that reparations--true, substantive reparations--are paid for the theft endured by the Congolese, even up to this day.
Subjects
- Forced labor -- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- History -- 19th century
- Forced labor -- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- History -- 20th century
- Indigenous peoples -- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- History -- 19th century
- Indigenous peoples -- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- History -- 20th century
- Human rights movements -- History -- 19th century
- Human rights movements -- History -- 20th century
- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Politics and government -- 1885-1908
- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Politics and government
- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Race relations -- History -- 19th century
- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century