- Paperback: 356 pages
- Publisher: Pan; 2 edition (20 Jan 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330441981
- ISBN-13: 978-0330441988
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
94,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #13 in Books > History > Other Historical Subjects > Slavery
- #13 in Books > History > Countries & Regions > Africa > 20th Century
- See Complete Table of Contents
King Leopold's Ghost
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.70
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.70, 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 and 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
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Giles Foden, The Guardian, 24 April 1999
"As Adam Hochschild tells in his fascinating book about the Congo's terrible encounter with Europe. . . . the creation of Zaire under the dictator Mobutu, the break-up of that country and its renaming Congo, and the civil war that rages there now--all of these can be traced back to Leopold's bloody enterprise."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
ON JANUARY 28, 1841, a quarter-century after Tuckey's failed expedition, the man who would spectacularly accomplish what Tuckey tried to do was born in the small Welsh market town of Denbigh. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
ON JANUARY 28, 1841, a quarter-century after Tuckey's failed expedition, the man who would spectacularly accomplish what Tuckey tried to do was born in the small Welsh market town of Denbigh. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I came to this book not knowing anything about the colonisation of Congo, nor King Leopold of Belgium, and I left it absolutely astonished and seething with anger. How could such atrocities have happened and been permitted? What's more, how come I was never taught about this at school?
This is a no-holds-barred account of the greed and manipulation of one man and how he was personally responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese. But it's no heavy academic tome. Thankfully Mr. Rochschild's journalistic skills and light touch mean that it reads like a work of fiction. In this way he has made a very difficult and heart-wrenching story greatly accessible, and rightly so. It's a story that needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
This is a no-holds-barred account of the greed and manipulation of one man and how he was personally responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese. But it's no heavy academic tome. Thankfully Mr. Rochschild's journalistic skills and light touch mean that it reads like a work of fiction. In this way he has made a very difficult and heart-wrenching story greatly accessible, and rightly so. It's a story that needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Adam Hochschild has once again produced a book which has been wonderfully researched and crafted. Parts of the book just make one shake one's head in disbelief. It is quite amazing that the Belgian people up until this day refuse to acknowledge and make part of their history the truth of what really happened. This is the 21st century and someone either from the Congo or Belgium needs to give them a very serious wake up call.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I want to say that I enjoyed this book, but enjoy is not really a word I would use when dealing with such a grim subject. King Leopold III of Belgium decided that to compensate for the fact that his country was so small, he would take a large slice of Africa and use it for his own personal fiefdom. He didn't want to visit it, he didn't especially want to bring religion to the area, he wanted to bleed it dry so he could live in even more splendor than he had grown accustomed to. By setting up several phony organisations and claiming to bring civilisation to the area, Leopold tricked countless people, companies and even entire countries into thinking that he was doing the noble thing and bringing free trade to area. Instead countless millions of African men, woman and children lost their homes, their villages, their hands, their freedom and their lives in the race for ivory and rubber while the white colonists swept up the profits.
It's an excellent book and one which goes a long way to explains the Congo's troubles but be warned, it's grim reading. The brutality meted out to the locals and the casual disregard of human life by the White officers is appalling, but it's a subject you can't shirk if you're interested in the history.
It's an excellent book and one which goes a long way to explains the Congo's troubles but be warned, it's grim reading. The brutality meted out to the locals and the casual disregard of human life by the White officers is appalling, but it's a subject you can't shirk if you're interested in the history.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
An amazing accomplishment
I have written my review in two parts the first being to actually review the book itself and provide my thoughts on it. Read more
Published 3 months ago by aus_books
A forgotten genocide.
King Leopold's Ghost was written to remind the world of a forgotten atrocity- as such it is both highly accessible and informative. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Ross
Valuable record of a sad man
The portrayal of Leopold as megalomaniac, obsessed with self aggrandisement is revealing and fascinating. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Robert
Another monster with an appetite for other peoples' land
Only after a few years of marriage did Leopold find out how to do "it" on a visit to cousin Victoria.Quel dommage that his dad ever found out. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Ms. A. Butler
General lessons from particular events
This is an exceptional book, relating as it does the early colonial period in the history of the Congo with the commercial exploitation, of first ivory and then rubber, as... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Random Reader
A remarkable book!
King Leopald's Ghost - A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa, By Adam Hoschild is a remarkable book. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Chola Mukanga
A well written but disturbing history of Belgium's African history
The author does a remarkable job of explaining how King Leopold managed to carve out his personal empire amid the height of the scramble for Africa. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Litfan
King Leopold's Ghost; Adam Hochschild
The Congo, despite immense and abundant natural resources, is one of those benighted parts of the world about which we only ever seem to hear bad news. Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2010 by Diogenes
Very good book
A really captivating and well written book. Very interesting to learn more about the history of Belgium and the Congo, a lot was new information. The book was in good condition. Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2009 by Boekenworm
A fantastic history of the Heart of Darkness
This book explains why Joseph Conrad wrote the Heart of Darkness during his brief forray into the Congo Free State. Read more
Published on 20 April 2009 by J. Milton
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.
