Kong Leopolds arv : en fortælling om grådighed, terror og… (1998)

I used to be on the fence about colonialism. Not any more. This is a stomach wrenching, finely detailed account of the slaughter of roughly 10 million Africans in the drive for ivory and rubber profits in the Congo River basin. If you ever read Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" as fantasy or allegory, after this you will know its nearly non-fiction. ( )

Excellent history of the Congo in that period! Hochschild said late in the book that one of the accomplishments of the humanitarian movement at that time was to provoke outrage at the inhumane treatment of other human beings. The book certainly accomplished that, too. ( )

This book revolutionized my understanding of the history of the slave trade and the relationship between Europe and Africa. It's not exactly what they taught me in school... ( )

Countless (but not all, the author is careful to note) problems in the Congo can be traced to Belgian King Leopold’s making it his own personal property to fund his massive building projects in Belgium. The horrors are unreal and the death toll of millions rivals the worst mass killings in history. A snapshot of the effect of foreign colonialism, by king or country. Excellent research, detailed, and well-told. ( )

Review: King Leopold Ghost by Adam Hochschild.

This was a long interesting book. I couldn’t believe some of the information I read, not just about King Leopold but other famous people who was acquainted with King Leopold. The many different characters made the book long pace but the author gave plenty of information on each character and their history and how they impacted on the world, which I found helpful. The solitude of the area and the time period brought up many happenings, good and bad. The author at the time had a hard time finding a publisher because of some of the research he accumulated was foreign to the world because many people wanted nothing to do with the Congo’s information that was carried out at that time.

King Leopold was obsessed with expanding Congo even when it was not his land. He was harsh, greedy, selfish, and insatiable and his unfair treatment towards the people in the Congo which he pressed for punishment by his officials was truly gruesome leaving many disfigured, and some without limbs. The author stated that King Leopold wasn’t the only brutal person in this book. Many Belgians never told their stories and were tired of the embarrassing extravagance and selfishness that the officials put before them.

All the information about King Leopold who seized the vast unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River was overpowering the people’s rights. He was corrupted by stealing Belgium’s main industrial lifeline of rubber; he brutalized Belgium’s people, and decreased their population by millions. ( )