King Leopold's Ghost - Adam Hochschild

King Leopold's Ghost

By Adam Hochschild

  • Release Date: 1999-09-03
  • Genre: African History
4.5 Score: 4.5 (From 35 Ratings)

Description

 "An enthralling story . . . A work of history that reads like a novel." â€” 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

Reviews

  • Congo

    5
    By 21st Century Seeker
    Eye opening read. Loved it.

Comments