- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan (9 April 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0333661265
- ISBN-13: 978-0333661260
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 16 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
771,676 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #38 in Books > History > Countries & Regions > Africa > 1500-1900
- See Complete Table of Contents
 Trade In this Item for up to £7.40
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in King Leopold's Ghost for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £7.40, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Years ago, Adam Hochschild came across a reference to the "five to eight million lives" destroyed in the colonial exploitation of the Congo. Startled, he realised that this had been "one of the major killing grounds of modern times. Why were these deaths not mentioned in the standard litany of our century's horrors?" His corrective history makes sobering, gripping reading. In King Leopold of Belgium, who decided to buy himself an empire to compensate for his country's smallness, he portrays a villain of Shakespearian dimensions. Aided by Stanley (of "Mr Livingstone I Presume" fame) the king appropriated a section of central Africa the size of Western Europe as his personal territory. The appalling brutality that ensued, as Europeans plundered the country for rubber and ivory, is vividly captured by Hochschild. He manages to leaven the horror with touches of grotesque humour--for instance, when tricking tribal chiefs into signing away their land for bales of cloth, Stanley would, to impress his dupes, secrete a battery in his pocket with the wires in his palm, so that on shaking hands the chief "was greatly surprised to find his white brother so strong that he nearly knocked him off his feet". Hochschild has something of Simon Schama's gift for populist history; and among other things he provides astonishing background to Joseph Conrad's Congo-set masterpiece, Heart of Darkness. --Adam Roberts
The Economist, Sept. 11, 1999
"To an already long list of tyrants which includes Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Idi Amin, a late addition is required.'Late' only because King Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909) should always have been there. As 'owner' of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908 he was responsible for what Joseph Conrad once called 'the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.' It is indeed a ghastly story of greed, lies and murder. And Adam Hochschild retells it well. 'King Leopold's Ghost' last week beat several excellent books to win the Lionel Gelber prize. . . . now the world's most important award for non-fiction. . . . Around the turn of this century in the depths of the Congo the bonds of humanity were unbound and the trappings of civilisation cast aside, releasing something diabolical which exists within us all. Mr. Hochschild conveys this particularly well."
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This work of clarity, wit and insight throws open doors and windows on the murky mansion that Leopold built. The complex issues - political, economic and social - which could prove ponderous to convey - are superbly handled and illuminated through the skilful presentation of the protagonists and the forces which shaped and drove them. From the squalid infancy of H.M. Stanley and the hardly less emotionally stunted childhood of Leopold to their twin hunger for dominion and recognition, from the incandescent courage of those who campaigned against the murder, mutilation and destruction wreaked on the Congo to the long-unheard voices of those who were deemed to be no more than expendable vermin, a voice of articulate passion and wisdom informs this history.
This is history as it should be - vivid, informed , specific - and universally, eternally relevant.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is without the most gripping and shocking book i have ever read on this subject. Very entertainingly written almost impossible to put down even after page-1, i started reading this book in the morning and with sorrow finished late in the evening. Wish it had been a couple of hundred pages longer.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
