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| King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in the Congo | 
| Author: Adam Hochschild
Publisher: Papermac
Category: Book
Buy Used: $4.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  188 reviews
Format: Import
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
ISBN: 0333765443
EAN: 9780333765449
ASIN: 0333765443
Publication Date: March 10, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 183 more reviews...
 The facts of Western Civilization November 12, 2008
There are few stories that shock you with horror and this is one of the stories that make you wonder about greed and inhumanity of men. The grounds one of Africa's largest region was granted continue to this day(we all remember democracy for Iraq)was to end the Islamization of the Congo but the reality was for Leopold to exploit as he want through summary executions, looting, deforestation, hanging, amputations of African women, men and children.
Leopold's personal rubber planations caused the lives of millions of Africans with granted immunity from western democracies and the Congolese paid with their land, lives and culture. The Congo has always been a place the west value due to its raw materials and the Author has written a book with an array of characters that are humanly flawed, yet honest about the basic universal laws toward others.
i was amazed that the coined term "crime against humanity" was first used/written by an African American, who is a generation removed from Amerian slavery. The silence of Christianity, the model of Kutz and task achieved by the author truly bring written history to life.
The author has written a book that illustrate to the world that silence is always ground for future horrors. In fact, the horrors' victims have mostly been people from the southern hemisphere but we must understand in an interdependent society that every soldier of terrorist regime or colony eventually will return home and to some extent practice their craft in their original community.
The Friendly Belgians November 11, 2008
To the extent that the Belgians impinge on the American sense of history at all, they exist in a kind of permanent heroic relief, bravely standing strong against the juggernaut of Kaiser Wilhelm in World War I. Their brave defense of Liege, and the courageous stand of King Albert I when he fought the German onslaught remain as poster-child images of an honorable European nation.
Adam Hochschild paints a horrific tale that makes adherents of divine retribution see a just punishment in both world wars for the atrocities committed against Africans in the Belgian Congo. Other readers have faulted the book for its sketchy treatment of the Congo, its myriad tribes, languages, customs, and varied landscape, but as an introduction to the most despotic depradations since the Spanish Conquest, the book is enlightening, riveting, and wrenching.
I could not read the chapters consecutively, so terrible is the litany of atrocities perpetrated by the Belgians. This book will take your breath away with its awfulness. It chronicles the pogroms that were enforced on tribes who could not collect their quotas of rubber, and it repeats in awful detail the torture and sadism of colonial rulers who cut off the hands of living children in order to run up false tallies of the dead. Each chapter devolves into a series of calamities more gruesome than the one before, and the only way I got through the book was by taking hourlong breaks in between chapters.
This book is an invaluable primer on colonial Belgium in the Congo. It is a continuation of the slave trade practiced hundreds of years before, and reflects the true nature of European attitudes towards Africa during a time when the slave trade had been extinct for more than a century. This is compelling and moving history at its very best.
Be careful who you sit down to tea with October 4, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a brutal history of the colonization of the Belgian Congo beginning in the 1890's. Long after slavery was unilaterally condemned on the planet earth, we find that King Leopold and the tiny country of Belgium has managed to take ownership of a chunk of the African continent, claim it for its own and ransack its people and resources for his own benefit.
Belgium felt they were being left out of the colonial expansion of Europe into Africa and wanted their piece of the action. They found the Congo River area an ideal source of rubber and cheap labor; a perfect location to set up shop which they did with the help of vicious mercenaries and Belgian company men. The book goes into horrible detail about the methods the white colonialists and their hired African mercenaries used to extract these resources and the labor that made it so valuable.
How could this happen? Where was the rest of the world? Well, believe it or not the United States inadvertently helped Leopold. A senator Sanford from the state of Florida, on the floor of the house, recognized the Congo as a Belgian territory. This simple recognition of a countries imperialistic expansion left the door wide open for Leopold to continue his atrocities under the guise of a legitimate Belgian state. It took decades for the truth about this brutal state to be known.
The implications of this episode in history bear some resemblance to today's debate about the benefit of the US negotiating with known terrorist states like Iran and N Korea. If a super power comes to the table of negotiation with a rogue state, the rogue country wins recognition even when nothing is accomplished. Unless pre-conditions and terms are negotiated, which make the meeting of mutual benefit to both parties, these terrorist states need to be marginalized and shunned by society at large.
Leopold: Evil Genius August 16, 2008
I would like to present a review of Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa" which depicts the ruthlessness and greed of King Leopold in his exploitation of the Congolese. Furthermore, it illustrates the horrors of the rubber trade which spanned nearly thirty years. The author narrates this account of African history particularly well. Showing us the psychological traits of each character involved in the plot to acquire the Congo, the author gives us insight into the psychological motives of this episode in Belgium's colonizing days. Leopold is an evil, political genius orchestrating a grand scheme to subtly take over the Congo. He manipulates people with ease and lies just as easily. As Belgium's King, he acquires loyal spies in every major European country informing him of that country's intentions and political moves. Furthermore, Hocschild chronicles how the Belgian army slaughtered the native Congolese in pursuit of rubber vines from the rain forest. Moreover, as a novel, "Leopold's Ghost" introduces each character individually tracing their roots from childhood and depicting their personality traits early in life and illustrates how personality traits shape people and their desires.
Amazingly eyeopening July 22, 2008
Although I teach High school history I've never been intersted in African history. I've taught slavery, Pre-european contact, and Egypt yet I've never studied or taught about imperialism in Africa. In preparation for teaching this period in a Modern World history class I've been reading about Africa. Wow - this book blew my mind. It presents all sides of the imperialism issue and doesn't make the Africans as innocent victims. Don't be confused this book pulls no punches everyone from the American government to the British, Belgium and the African leaders are shown to be complicit in the death of over 10 million Africans. Don't miss this one it will help you understand the problems Africa faces today.
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