King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial AfricaThe 25th Anniversary Edition, with a foreword by Barbara Kingsolver "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 A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist * A New York Times Notable Book 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. |
From inside the book
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... missionaries.” —James Zug,Philadelphia Inquirer “A remarkably engaging work of popular history: extensively researched, well written and difficult to put down.” —Scott McLemee,Newsday “Spellbinding.” —Robert Taylor,Seattle Post ...
... missionaries to his new colony; his troops, it is said, have fought and defeated local slave-traders who preyed on the population; and for more than a decade European newspapers have praised him for investing his personal fortune in ...
... missionaries twice manage to get briefly inland as far as the top of the great rapids. A Portuguese expedition that tried to repeat this trek never returned. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Europeans still knew nothing about ...
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 |