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Trade Paperback
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9780358212508
Overview
Overview
"An enthralling story . . . A work of history that reads like a novel." -- Christian Science Monitor
"As Hochschild's brilliant book demonstrates, the great Congo scandal prefigured our own times . . . This book must be read and reread." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
In the late nineteenth century, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium carried out a brutal plundering of the territory surrounding the Congo River. Ultimately slashing the area's population by ten million, he still managed to shrewdly cultivate his reputation as a great humanitarian. A tale far richer than any novelist could invent, King Leopold's Ghost is the horrifying account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who defied Leopold: African rebel leaders who fought against hopeless odds and a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure but unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust and participants in the twentieth century's first great human rights movement.
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
A New York Times Notable Book
"As Hochschild's brilliant book demonstrates, the great Congo scandal prefigured our own times . . . This book must be read and reread." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
In the late nineteenth century, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium carried out a brutal plundering of the territory surrounding the Congo River. Ultimately slashing the area's population by ten million, he still managed to shrewdly cultivate his reputation as a great humanitarian. A tale far richer than any novelist could invent, King Leopold's Ghost is the horrifying account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who defied Leopold: African rebel leaders who fought against hopeless odds and a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure but unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust and participants in the twentieth century's first great human rights movement.
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
A New York Times Notable Book
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Hochschild, Adam
- ISBN: 9780358212508
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 7.90 x 1.20
- Number Of Pages: 416
- Publication Year: 2020
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The backdrop for Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Joshua L. - 6 years 7 months agoKing Leopold's Ghost is a fascinating and horrifying account of a European monarch whose lust for colonial riches wreaked havoc in central Africa during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Though Leopold never stepped foot in his prized Belgian Congo colony, his quest to exploit the region's natural resources (primarily ivory and rubber) shattered countless lives and went on to serve as the backdrop for Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Hochschild details the origins and expansion of Belgian rule in central Africa and includes accounts from colonial authorities and their victims as well as those who strove to bring an end to the rampant human rights abuses perpetrated under Leopold's reign.
HPB Staff Review