Synopsis
This book chronicles Belgian King Leopold II's conquest of the Congo Free State, a nation he colonized motivated by a desire for wealth and power. In the process, Leopold caused untold death, destruction, and despair, as well as the near obliteration of the country's natural resources. A New York Times Notable Book for 1998.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1999-09-03 | | Edition Description: | Reprint |
| Size | | Length: | 366 pages | | Height: | 8.8 in | | Width: | 6.0 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 17.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
In "an enthralling story, full of fascinating characters, intense drama, high adventure, deceitful manipulation, courageous truth-telling, and splendid moral fervor" ("Christian Science Monitor"), Hochschild tells the story of King Leopold of Belgium, a megalomaniac of monstrous portions. 31 photos. Map.
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.
Industry Reviews
"...a vivid, novelistic narrative that makes the reader acutely aware of the magnitude of the horror perpetrated by King Leopold and his minions."
New York Times - Michiko Kakutani (09/01/1998)
"Adam Hochschild's 'King Leopold's Ghost' is an absorbing and horrifying account of the traffic in human misery that went on in Leopold's so-called Congo Free State....Among other things, it stands as a reminder of how quickly enormities can be forgotten....[a] gripping narrative, as dense as a novel and laden with subplots...."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Luc Sante (09/27/1998)
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