King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa "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 |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 12
Page 1
... British speech is without the polish of Eton or Oxford. He is well dressed, but the clothes are not from Bond Street. With an ailing mother and a wife and growing family to support, he is not the sort of person likely to get caught up ...
... British speech is without the polish of Eton or Oxford. He is well dressed, but the clothes are not from Bond Street. With an ailing mother and a wife and growing family to support, he is not the sort of person likely to get caught up ...
Page 2
... British Foreign Office. He would mobilize everyone from Booker T. Washington to Anatole France to the Archbishop of Canterbury to join his cause. More than two hundred mass meetings to protest slave labor in the Congo would be held ...
... British Foreign Office. He would mobilize everyone from Booker T. Washington to Anatole France to the Archbishop of Canterbury to join his cause. More than two hundred mass meetings to protest slave labor in the Congo would be held ...
Page 5
... British Foreign Office, sometimes on a day-by-day basis. But we do not have a full-length memoir or complete oral history of a single Congolese during the period of the greatest terror. Instead of African voices from this time there is ...
... British Foreign Office, sometimes on a day-by-day basis. But we do not have a full-length memoir or complete oral history of a single Congolese during the period of the greatest terror. Instead of African voices from this time there is ...
Page 11
... British colonies in North America. Roughly one of every four slaves imported to work the cotton and tobacco plantations of the American South began his or her journey across the Atlantic from equatorial Africa, including the Kongo ...
... British colonies in North America. Roughly one of every four slaves imported to work the cotton and tobacco plantations of the American South began his or her journey across the Atlantic from equatorial Africa, including the Kongo ...
Page 17
... British expedition, led by Captain James K. Tuckey of the Royal Navy, set off to find the Congo's origins. His two ships carried a wonderfully odd assortment of people: Royal Marines, carpenters, blacksmiths, a surgeon, a gardener from ...
... British expedition, led by Captain James K. Tuckey of the Royal Navy, set off to find the Congo's origins. His two ships carried a wonderfully odd assortment of people: Royal Marines, carpenters, blacksmiths, a surgeon, a gardener from ...
Other editions - View all
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa Adam Hochschild No preview available - 2019 |
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Adam Hochschild No preview available - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
Affonso African Mail American began Belgian Belgium Boma British Brussels Casement chicotte chief colony Congo reform Congo Reform Association Congo River Congolese Conrad consul death diary E. D. Morel England Europe European expedition explorer Force Publique forced labor Foreign francs French hands head Heart of Darkness Henry Morton Stanley hundred ivory Joseph Conrad Kasai Kasai River killed King Leopold king’s Kongo Kowalsky Kuba Kurtz Laeken land Lapsley later Léon Leopold’s Congo Leopoldville letters living London Marchal Matadi McLynn military million minister mission missionaries months natives never newspaper porters Portuguese Presbyterian president quoted in Reid railway rebels regime Roger Casement Royal rubber Sanford sent Shanu Sheppard ship slave trade soldiers Stanley Pool Stanley’s station steamboat Stengers story territory thousand tion took turned village William Sheppard Williams women wrote York young