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

Adam Hochschild’s current turn-of-the-century masterpiece in the legacy of Leopold in Africa is a must-read. Hochschild is on a singular mission to show how greed gets wrapped in one lie after another in order to commit one of the greatest atrocities in history. In Leopold’s case, we see that even philanthropy and emancipatory messages can be manipulated under the auspices of a demon like Leopold. Hochschild’s repackaging of Leopold’s exploits is scholarly in its detail and precision. He utilizes a wide cast of historical personas that were in Leopold’s orbit or tangentially relevant to what happened in the Congo. In this way, Hochschild shows that even the most inadvertently connected contributed to or thwarted Leopold’s goals. All of this demonstrates the complex connections through time, politics, and commerce that tie the fate of Africa to the larger world. In the Congo’s case, that connection is the rubber terror that raped the region of its wealth but more importantly, its people. More broadly speaking, Hochschild shows us that the pillaging of Africa is a terror that has never ended. It has just transitioned from one resource war into another; oil, silicon, water, and others. A powerful tone that underscores that late-stage Western capitalism is nothing more than weaponized greed that bastardizes all ideas of morality. In the end, this book is another example of how powerful people are brought down by the smallest of overlooked vices. The truth is known today only because of the perseverance of a passionate few to memorialize the record during their time. A monumental effort in contrast to the blatant document burning and manipulation of the state. An example that we need to follow today. It is also a fitting reminder that Belgium will forever live under the ghost of Leopold’s evil.

"At the time of the Congo controversy a hundred years ago, the idea of full human rights, political, social, and economic, was a profound threat to the established order of most countries on earth. It still is today."

I genuinely could not recommend this book enough. So critical to understanding the modern situation in the Congo and in Africa writ large. My only complaint is that, when it comes to Soviet history, the claims are all opinion-based without much of a factual basis whatsoever. It's a pretty major issue, so I can't give it a 5 for that reason, but I'd just recommend ignoring those parts. Regardless, truly an amazing book.

I reread the American-born writer Adam Hochschild’s 1999’s edition of King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Hochschild’s monograph was responsible for putting the humanitarian crisis of the Belgian King Leopold II’s Congo Free State and the first “great human rights movement” of the 20th Century (back cover of the monograph) back in the public imagination. Hochschild’s monograph is both a study of the crisis and a study of the movement to end the crisis. Hochschild is mainly focused on the life story of King Leopold II, Henry Morton Stanley, E.D. Morel, Roger Casement, and William Sheppard. Several other important figures in the monograph are George Washington Williams, Hezekiah Andrew Shanu, Joseph Conrad among others. Hochschild is interested in getting the Congolese view of the crisis by looking at the written record of the oral history. Hochschild seems fair and balanced to me. For example, Hochschild writes that “what happened in the Congo was indeed mass murder on a vast scale, but the sad truth is that the men who carried it out for Leopold were no more murderous than many Europeans than at work or at war elsewhere in Africa” (283). Hochschild also mentions the American war in the Philippines and the American Indian Wars of that time as being murderous as Leopold’s Congo (282). That being said, Hochschild believes that one of the successes of the movement to end Leopold's Congo Free State was to make sure that the crimes of Leopold’s Congo were not forgotten. The other real success of the movement to end Leopold’s Congo, Hochschild writes, was that “it kept alive a tradition, a way of seeing the world, a human capacity for outrage at the pain inflicted on another human being, no matter whether that pain is inflicted on someone of another color, in another country, at another end of the earth” (305). Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost is a good introduction to the first “great human rights movement” of the 20th Century (back cover of the monograph).

haunting

Eye opening, tragic