King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
Adam Hochschild (Author)
(271)

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Democratic Republic of Congo

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.

• Rank: #3522 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.09" h x .98" w x 6.14" l, 1.08 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 366 pages

• 6 x 9 inches 366 pages

Description #1 by Barnes & Noble - gonna need a bigger book:

Categories: 1990-2000->Gelber Prize, Congo (Democratic Republic)->History->Early period to 1908, Congo (Democratic Republic)->Politics and government. Contributors: Adam Hochschild - Author. Format: Paperback

Description #2 by Sankofa Video & Books:

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 colo...

Description #3 by eBay - hungry-bookorm:

payment | shipping rates | returns King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Product Category :Books UPC :046442759243 ISBN :0395759242 Title :King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa EAN :9782702823316 Authors :Adam Hochschild Binding :Hardcover Publisher :Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publication Date :1998-09-21 Pages :366 Signed :False First Edition :False Dust Jacket :False List Price (MSRP) :26.00 Height :1.2800 inches