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

Tempting, 60+ years after the end of colonization, to blame Africa's problems on the local elites, superstition, corruption and the aftermath of the Cold War, with massive stocks of obsolete AK47s and the like generally making life miserable for all.Sure, Europeans have to admit to the imposition of arbitrary borders to suit European geographers and deal-making rather than taking into account local ethnic groups.After all, how bad could it have been? To be clear, I generally subscribe to that view and am not usually disposed to worrying too much about European guilt.Well, according to this book, Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now are directly inspired from the reign of terror by one rather trivial and silly king, Leopold II of a fairly insignificant country, Belgium. The body count resulting from his policies are estimated by some to number in the millions (in Belgium's partial defense, Leopold's activities are presented here as being a somewhat off-the-books quasi-private venture).The book itself is well-written, interesting and fairly quick reading and includes a fair bit of general information of interest to any history buff.You don't have to come out of it tearing your hair out about white guilt. That's not the point, or at least it wasn't for me.But if your world view can tolerate a hit to its complacency, consider that Africa's nastiest ongoing civil war, in the Congo, corresponds exactly to where this bit of history was taking place. Is it too much of a stretch to suppose that the near collapse of an entire population would have affected the survivors for decades to come? (Rwanda is not covered but was also under Belgian administration and perpetuating Tutsi dominance was part of colonial policy).This certainly made me rethink my position about European colonialism being unjustified, yes, but also relatively benign in general. 6-8 million deaths calls for a lot of blame and I was astonished that I'd mostly never heard of it.Oddly convenient that we've generally forgotten about an extermination event roughly of the same magnitude as the Holocaust even though it made headline news until the early 20th century.Last but not least - can this be generalized to Africa's colonization as a whole? That's a stretch, from the material in this book. One can hope that the Belgian Congo was an outlier and aberration, but to what extent did lesser atrocities take place elsewhere, under other colonial nations? That's for other books to bring to light or rule out.One thing for sure, Africans, whether Congolese or not, who are aware of this episode will have their outlook of Europeans altered by it and one should take that into account before glibly dismissing their criticism of colonialism.

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild is truly one of the best non-fiction history books I have ever read. The author does a truly great job summarizing, explaining and describing the crimes committed by King Leopold II and his supporters, both European and African, during his reign over the Belgian Congo from the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Below is a summary of the book.1) King Leopold II was, by nature, a psychopath as well as very greedy for both money and power hungry. When he inherited Belgium, he felt insecure due to the small size of his kingdom relative to neighbors such as France and Germany and it was during a time period when European countries and peoples were abandoning monarchies and adopting rule via elected government. He wanted to turn little Belgium into an empire and make a profit from the natural resources of its colonies for his own purposes.2) King Leopold II managed to claim Belgium through a variety of ways including creating organizations under the cover of humanitarian aid for Africans, using superior European technology that the Africans were unable to defend themselves against, as well as gaining recognition from larger empires to validate his claim through both business and political maneuvers.3) The Force Publique was set up in the Congo. It consisted of mostly European officers from various countries, not just Belgium, as well as African soldiers. The Force Publique terrorized, enslaved, and murdered much of the Congolese population. Methods included cutting off of hands of innocent people who refused to collect at first ivory and then rubber as well as whipping men, women, and children. It was common practice for Force Publique personnel to cut off peoples' hands as proof of their killing and efficient use of bullets.4) The invention of using rubber for tires accelerated the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II and his cronies to further increase their profits.5) There were westerners who were openly critical towards the atrocities such as E. D. Morel, George Washington Williams, and others. Although they did achieve some success, conditions in the Belgian Congo did not improve.6) It is estimated that approximately 10 million people may have been murdered under King Leopold II's reign of terror.This is truly a great book and a strong description, not just of the Belgian colonization of the Congo, but of all colonization of the European powers.

Poucas vezes se encontra um trabalho documental tão profundo, sobre um momento histórico tão decisivo, de forma tão literária — história com gosto de romance, mistura perfeita de entretenimento e informação.

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Splendido libro sulla storia della colonizzazione belga in Congo. Scritto molto bene, si legge agevolmente.Ben documentato, permette di pensare alla colonizzazione anche dal punto di vista dei colonizzati

This book is well written, very well researched and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Not only did I learn a great deal about the atrocities that went on in the Congo during the second half of the 19th century, I also appreciated the author's well thought out discussion on the aftermath of King Leopold's reign of terror, what has changed and what has not, in the Congo/Zaire and elsewhere. This book changed my perspective on colonial Africa, a perspective that I acquired largely during my youth spent in neighboring Angola, a Portuguese colony at the time. I was there in June 1960 when independence was granted by Belgium to the Congolese people, I saw the raise and fall of a succession of leaders among them Joseph Kasavubu, Patrice Lumumba, and Mobuto Sese Seko. Although I was not aware of the extent of the brutality and terror that went on in the pre-independence Congo, until I read King Leopold's Ghost, I am convinced to this day that things were not nearly as bad in Angola as they were in the Congo at the time of King Leopold. However, I could be mistaken, and I would love to read a book as well researched as this one on 19th century Angola.

This is one of the my most favorite book. If you love history and want to know part of African history/ congo, this is highly recommended. Writer brought history back to life , it's complex history but simply written.