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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King Leopold of Belgium, writes historian Adam Hochschild in this grim history, did not much care for his native land or his subjects, all of which he dismissed as "small country, small people." Even so, he searched the globe to find a colony for Belgium, frantic that the scramble of other European powers for overseas dominions in Africa and Asia would leave nothing for himself or his people. When he eventually found a suitable location in what would become the Belgian Congo, later known as Zaire and now simply as Congo, Leopold set about establishing a rule of terror that would culminate in the deaths of 4 to 8 million indigenous people, "a death toll," Hochschild writes, "of Holocaust dimensions." Those who survived went to work mining ore or harvesting rubber, yielding a fortune for the Belgian king, who salted away billions of dollars in hidden bank accounts throughout the world. Hochschild's fine book of historical inquiry, which draws heavily on eyewitness accounts of the colonialists' savagery, brings this little-studied episode in European and African history into new light. --Gregory McNamee
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Hochschild's superb, engrossing chronicle focuses on one of the great, horrifying and nearly forgotten crimes of the century: greedy Belgian King Leopold II's rape of the Congo, the vast colony he seized as his private fiefdom in 1885. Until 1909, he used his mercenary army to force slaves into mines and rubber plantations, burn villages, mete out sadistic punishments, including dismemberment, and committ mass murder. The hero of Hochschild's highly personal, even gossipy narrative is Liverpool shipping agent Edmund Morel, who, having stumbled on evidence of Leopold's atrocities, became an investigative journalist and launched an international Congo reform movement with support from Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington and Arthur Conan Doyle. Other pivotal figures include Joseph Conrad, whose disgust with Leopold's "civilizing mission" led to Heart of Darkness; and black American journalist George Washington Williams, who wrote the first systematic indictment of Leopold's colonial regime in 1890. Hochschild (The Unquiet Ghost) documents the machinations of Leopold, who won over President Chester A. Arthur and bribed a U.S. senator to derail Congo protest resolutions. He also draws provocative parallels between Leopold's predatory one-man rule and the strongarm tactics of Mobuto Sese Seko, who ruled the successor state of Zaire. But most of all it is a story of the bestiality of one challenged by the heroism of many in an increasingly democratic world. 30 illustrations. Agent: Georges Borchardt. First serial rights to American Scholar. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Researcher Adam Hochschild provides a lurid and surprisingly fascinating account of the brutal exploitation of the Congo under the rule of King Leopold II of Belgium and beyond. With the real-life stories of Henry Morton Stanley, William Sheppard, Leon Rom, Joseph Conrad, Roger Casement and others as foundation, Hochschild is able to outline the rise of Leopold, and to paint a vivid portrait of his development from an unlikable and oafish young heir of the Belgian throne to a cunning and vicious ruler responsible for the death of approximately 10 million African men, women and children. More than that, this book is also the story of E.D. Morel, an Englishman whose chance discovery of apparent misdeeds in so-called "trade" with the Congo gave rise to the most extensive and politically powerful anti-slavery and anti-colonization movements of the century.
I recommend this title for its readability (few historians ever make their subject matter as accessible to general readers), its underlying - and savvy - political analysis of the brutality of European colonization across Africa, and its detailed account of what it took to launch, extend and sustain a human rights movement.
I recommend pairing this work with Michela Wrong's "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz," which details Congo's later struggles under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By gwc
Format:Paperback
The story in "King Leopold's Ghost" is a powerful one -- colonization taken to its extreme -- but the book is rendered mediocre by the author's trite moralizing, lack of historical rigor, and tiresome reliance on depicting every actor with either a halo or horns.
Hochschild's constant speculation into motives and fits of amateur psychoanalysis made it difficult to separate the matters of record from dramatic characterizations. The substantive research is rather thin and commonly presented in relative terms such as "many", "some", and "few" without context for comparison. At no point did I gain a clear insight into how widespread or coordinated were the atrocities or how damaging the secondary effects may have been (the chapter addressing this is awfully feeble). Leopold, here an antagonist of extraordinary guile, is only weakly connected to the governmental and business interests with which he worked; the reader is given pages of anecdote concerning the king's depravity with nearly no overview of the system in which he operated.
The final chapter is a model of the book's flaws. It considers the Belgian process of forgetting which followed their foray into colonialism, aided by international sympathy during the first world war. Instead of pursuing this interesting and somewhat complicated topic in more detail, however, we are duly regaled with additional vignettes of heroism and villainy. The book then concludes with a sermon aimed squarely at us in the choir. While some readers might find this inspirational, it bored me.
Assuming that research into the history of the Belgian Congo is ongoing, I'll look for a more definitive and less melodramatic account.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
King Leopold-this is a story that deserved to be told but wasn't. It was one of the biggest and one of the cruelest colonial regimes in Africa. It is a story of manipulation, drama, brutal murders, corruption, and immorality. In my opinion, King Leopold of Belgium is one of history's most notorious characters. Due to Leopold being the heir to the throne, as a child he was drawn towards wealth and indulgence. Greed drove him. Even into his adulthood, greed and self-indulgence were the traits that surfaced when he realized through gaining colonies he could continue to accumulate his riches. He positioned himself as a concerned leader of the people who wanted to combat the Arab slave trade that pervaded Africa. In the public eye, he was seen as a humanitarian, but the real facts didn't support that popular opinion and contradicted his image. Leopold used unethical methods to acquire his land. He ordered his men to force the natives, the Congolese, into manual labor. His inhumane treatment of them was characterized by killings, whippings, destruction of crops and local villages, and taking, as hostages, the wives and children for those who resisted or didn't produce enough rubber or ivory for the day. According to the author, Adam Hochschild, there was an estimated ten million Congolese deaths during Leopold's colonization process. (That sounds familiar.) Sadly, King Leopold's name isn't mentioned with the Hitlers and the Stalins of world history in the classrooms, as it rightfully should be. As people during that time started to find out the truth, Leopold resorted to cover-ups, lawsuits and bribery. In my opinion, Hochschild has done a fantastic job telling a story that most haven't heard to enable them to understand the outcome and, more importantly, the motives behind it.
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4.4 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Colonialism is not dead...
Extremely well-researched & well-written. Adam Hochschild exposes what colonialism really accomplished in Africa (specifically the Congo) & it's lasting effects today. Read more
Published on Mar 5 2009 by Carissa Spithoff
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read
This is a must read if you are at all interested in Africa and the atrocities commited there. Normally i don't like history books, but after reading the introduction I was hooked. Read more
Published on April 28 2004 by "iglified"
1.0 out of 5 stars
Scandalous book
This book is not really historical. Many reknown historians (not only Belgian, but Britsh and Congolese as well) have concluded that what the book tells is very partial. Read more
Published on April 9 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars
10 Million Cheers for Colonialism?
Less than 50 years after agents of King Leopold had murdered, raped, tortured, mutilated, and brutalized half of the population of the Congo, Congolese schoolchildren were taught... Read more
Published on Feb 25 2004 by Dave Brooks
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sad, tragic story
King Leopold's Ghost is an engrossing, riveting account of one of the saddest chapters in the sad history of colonial exploration and exploitation of the African continent. Read more
Published on Nov 6 2003 by Lisa Bahrami
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chilling Tale of Colonial Africa
Carefully pieced together from documents, articles and witnesses, Leopold's atrocities are revealed to it's true genocidal proportions. Read more
Published on Oct 4 2003 by Egipsey
5.0 out of 5 stars
To Flood His Deeds With Day
"I knew almost nothing abour the history of the Congo until a few years ago, when I noticed a footnote in a book I happened to be reading... Read more
Published on July 28 2003 by John C. Landon
5.0 out of 5 stars
To Flood His Deeds With Day
"I knew almost nothing abour the history of the Congo until a few years ago, when I noticed a footnote in a book I happened to be reading... Read more
Published on July 27 2003 by John C. Landon
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deepest Darkest Africa, and Europe
This is a very informative and moving history on a mostly forgotten low point (among many low points) of European colonialism. Read more
Published on Jun 21 2003 by doomsdayer520
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Black Holocaust (10 mil+) no one heard about( must read)
Since I read this book over a year ago I have spoken about it to several people as well as bought copies to give to others. Read more
Published on Jun 6 2003 by ronald johnson
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