Point Of Books King Leopold's Ghost
| Title | : | King Leopold's Ghost |
| Author | : | Adam Hochschild |
| Book Format | : | Kindle Edition |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 442 pages |
| Published | : | September 3rd 1999 by Mariner Books (first published September 21st 1998) |
| Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. Cultural. Africa. Biography. Politics |
Adam Hochschild
Kindle Edition | Pages: 442 pages Rating: 4.16 | 38197 Users | 2540 Reviews
Description Supposing Books King Leopold's Ghost
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 WestIdentify Books As King Leopold's Ghost
| Original Title: | King Leopold's Ghost ASIN B004KZOWEG |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Leopold II of Belgium |
| Setting: | Congo, Democratic Republic of the (Congo, the Democratic Republic of the) Congo Free State |
| Literary Awards: | Mark Lynton History Prize (1999), California Book Award for Nonfiction (Gold) (1998), Lionel Gelber Prize (1999), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for General Nonfiction (1998), Duff Cooper Prize (1999) |
Rating Of Books King Leopold's Ghost
Ratings: 4.16 From 38197 Users | 2540 ReviewsWrite Up Of Books King Leopold's Ghost
This is not a book for the faint-hearted.It reveals the massive abuse of the Congo from the very day the Belgian King Leopold II laid his eyes on it and till the end of colonial days.You may ask why we cannot let bygone be bygones, why we cannot get out of our mind the pictures of severed hands and heads, flogging, rape and murder.You may ask why treating other human beings like animals or at best like second-class citizens in the past should not just be buried as something we have dealt withThis is one of those essential books that anyone who wants to understand the history of Central Africa, and why the Democratic Republic of the Congo is such a difficult place today, should read. This book also makes clear why King Leopold II of Belgium belongs right up there with Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot as one of the greatest mass murderers in history. Leopold was way ahead of his time when it came to public relations and propaganda and some people, to this very day, still believe that
This is a remarkably painful book. There are a number of estimates given throughout of the extent of the extermination of people in the Congo under King Leopold the author says perhaps 8-10 million people, but he also quotes someone who believes it might have been as many as 13 million people. This does not include, obviously enough, the children who were not born because their parents could not face bringing them into such a world. I mention this because at one point the author quotes people
A very troubling look at the Belgian involvement in the Congo -- a chapter in the European 'Scramble for Africa' -- that I had not known much about. Leopold, in particular, comes out looking very bad. The book (which I listened to as an audio) is still a bit too long and spends too much time on narrow topics -- and engages in a bit of hagiography of E.D. Morel and Roger Casement. In other words, the author is trying to appeal to the pathos in the reader, where more detachment would have made for
You think you know, but you actually dont. This book is the most compelling history on colonial Africa Ive ever read. Its on par with The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.Furthermore, unlike many other great predators of history, from Genghis Khan to the Spanish conquistadors, King Leopold II never saw a drop of blood spilled in anger. He never set foot in the Congo. There is something very modern about that, too, as there is about the bomber pilot in the stratosphere, above the clouds, who
This is not a book for the faint-hearted.It reveals the massive abuse of the Congo from the very day the Belgian King Leopold II laid his eyes on it and till the end of colonial days.You may ask why we cannot let bygone be bygones, why we cannot get out of our mind the pictures of severed hands and heads, flogging, rape and murder.You may ask why treating other human beings like animals or at best like second-class citizens in the past should not just be buried as something we have dealt with
Before Pol Pot's Kampuchea, Hitler's Auschwitz, and Stalin's Gulag, there was Belgian monarch Leopold II's Congo. For over twenty years, Leopold literally owned the Belgian Congo as a personal fief, free of interference from his own people. While in charge, he ruthlessly exploited the native population in collecting rubber. With his Force Publique enforcers, men were sent out to collect rubber from wild trees while their wives and children were held hostage. If they failed to meet their quotas,
No comments
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.