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

Tempting, 60+ years after the end of colonization, to blame Africa's problems on the local elites, superstition, corruption and the aftermath of the Cold War, with massive stocks of obsolete AK47s and the like generally making life miserable for all.Sure, Europeans have to admit to the imposition of arbitrary borders to suit European geographers and deal-making rather than taking into account local ethnic groups.After all, how bad could it have been? To be clear, I generally subscribe to that view and am not usually disposed to worrying too much about European guilt.Well, according to this book, Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now are directly inspired from the reign of terror by one rather trivial and silly king, Leopold II of a fairly insignificant country, Belgium. The body count resulting from his policies are estimated by some to number in the millions (in Belgium's partial defense, Leopold's activities are presented here as being a somewhat off-the-books quasi-private venture).The book itself is well-written, interesting and fairly quick reading and includes a fair bit of general information of interest to any history buff.You don't have to come out of it tearing your hair out about white guilt. That's not the point, or at least it wasn't for me.But if your world view can tolerate a hit to its complacency, consider that Africa's nastiest ongoing civil war, in the Congo, corresponds exactly to where this bit of history was taking place. Is it too much of a stretch to suppose that the near collapse of an entire population would have affected the survivors for decades to come? (Rwanda is not covered but was also under Belgian administration and perpetuating Tutsi dominance was part of colonial policy).This certainly made me rethink my position about European colonialism being unjustified, yes, but also relatively benign in general. 6-8 million deaths calls for a lot of blame and I was astonished that I'd mostly never heard of it.Oddly convenient that we've generally forgotten about an extermination event roughly of the same magnitude as the Holocaust even though it made headline news until the early 20th century.Last but not least - can this be generalized to Africa's colonization as a whole? That's a stretch, from the material in this book. One can hope that the Belgian Congo was an outlier and aberration, but to what extent did lesser atrocities take place elsewhere, under other colonial nations? That's for other books to bring to light or rule out.One thing for sure, Africans, whether Congolese or not, who are aware of this episode will have their outlook of Europeans altered by it and one should take that into account before glibly dismissing their criticism of colonialism.

Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost is a masterful work of history that leaps off the pages. Set in the Victorian ‘Great Game’ era of European colonization across Africa, Hochschild focuses on a particularly savage chapter that led to the creation of the Belgian colony, the Congo (what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo).The central character is, in fact, a ghostly character named King Leopold, who developed the Congo as part money-making enterprise, part personal vanity project. As Hochschild describes Leopold - and many of the ancillary characters around him - you get a vivid sense of the times and attitudes that were prevalent amongst the Europeans. To reconcile how a genocide on this scale took place, these portrayals are vital and done with an even-handed delivery that should be commended considering how brutal the facts of the Congo’s founding were.Hochschild’s work isn’t just the history of a forgotten genocide. He’s constructed the research into a compelling narrative that makes every effort to turn historical figures into literary characters. Late 19th century cultural touchstones like Joseph Conrad, Henry Stanley and David Livingstone are used as a meaningful way to educate readers about this piece of history. It works to great effect throughout the entire book, at times lulling you into thinking this was historical fiction.The research behind this book is abundantly clear, as Hochschild repeatedly uncovers interesting channels of discussion about the Congo that had long been swept under the rug. Leopold’s disastrous family life, George Washington Williams foreshadowing crusade against racism and Stanley’s impotence weren’t necessary to tell this story but added great depth and will hold interest.King Leopold’s Ghost drives home how far we can twist our minds to reconcile genocidal inhumanity. The many reviewers shocked at behavior of the colonial Europeans only underscores just how great a job Hochschild did in delivering the zeitgeist of the late 19th century brand of racism toward native Africans. Everyone should read this book to understand not only this history but the ways in which the savagery from the time period has created a legacy of dysfunction across Africa the world deals with on a daily basis.

I originally ordered this book because I thought it about ghost. I was not disappointed that it was a history book about King Leopold and the atrocities he committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's a good read but very sad.