You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
This is an incredibly important, poignant, and horrifying book. The depths people will stoop to in the name of colonialism, progress, and greed is beyond frightening. Hochschild’s writing is engaging, accessible, and thoughtful. He describes the figures involved in a well-rounded way that shows the depths and complexities of their characters. He is empathetic, and recognizes where the book is lacking, namely in the voices of the Congolese who were most impacted. Overall, an essential history read.
Having recently finished "All Things Fall Apart," I felt that Hochschild's history of the Congo would make an excellent segue. Hochschild does his best to transform a history of great, mostly white, men into an exciting read. He largely focuses on Leopold II's opposition, E.D Morel of the Congo Reformation Association, William Sheppard, and Roger Casement, detailing their efforts to bring to light the horrors of the Congo Free State. While I overall thought the book to be a great history, I was disappointed in its focus on the major actors. I wanted to learn more about policy making, institutions, and the relationship between the State and the various corporations that set up camp. One complaint: Hochschild sometimes became so transfixed on his characters that he seemed to insert superfluous details about their background.
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Never in my life have come so close to despising the totality of one human being. Leopold was a megalomaniacal mercenarian genocidal terrorist. I had always heard mention of him in a very persona non grata sort of way, but now I know why. Leopold's life and legacy are a hard lesson in ambition without principle, in profit without humanity. Beyond the trail of destruction and destitution that he left behind, perhaps his single greatest accomplishment was the scale to which he deceived the international community. He was a master of media manipulation and his knack for duplicitous skulduggery was his weapon. As the book shows, he would come to wield this weapon on a scale largely unmatched in human history, and perhaps for all eternity.
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
A deeply moving and informative account of the “Congo Free State” and the brutality of King Leopold’s rule in the colony. It does a great job of displaying the horrors of European colonialism in Africa. I had minor issues with the general eurocentrism of the narrative and constant comparisons to domestic European violence, but he addresses these biases sufficiently in the book.
Really great read if you are trying to learn more about the historical factors that have lead to the horrible exploitation we see in the Congo and Sub-Saharan Africa today.
Really great read if you are trying to learn more about the historical factors that have lead to the horrible exploitation we see in the Congo and Sub-Saharan Africa today.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Racism, Rape, Colonisation, War
I read this in my freshman year African studies class in college. I thought it was entertaining and an interesting read.
The European powers began to take over the continent of Africa, cutting the land up into small regions controlled by the European nations. One of the most notorious of these Europeans countries to acquire a sizable amount of land was the country of Belgium with their shrewd leader, King Leopold II. During his reign over the territory of the Congo, he brought with him death and destruction. His whole reason for controlling the territory was to make money and to gain himself more power and prestige within the world. What happened in the Congo region was a holocaust on the scale of the one that would be created by the Nazi’s in Germany half a century later. The devastation caused during Leopold’s reign exterminated entire populations and destroyed multiple civilizations; imperialism took a great toll on the lives of people in Africa.
The imperialism of the African continent by the European countries is what in fact really devastated African populations, not the greater known African slave trade, although that did contribute to the problem. The interior of Africa was hit lesser due to the slave trade than the coastal ports; the ruin to the interior came due to exploration and the need for the European powers to obtain more land. When explorers started to venture into the interior of the Congo at the end of the nineteenth century they discovered vast lands inhabited by people the Europeans thought were uncivilized and not fit to govern themselves. The two most famous explorers were Stanley and Livingston who explored the region of Africa’s Congo. From the beginning, these two explorers surveyed the area of the Congo region, traversing Africa from the east to west coast. they came back to Europe with new information about the lands and how easy it would be for a country to take it over.
King Leopold of Belgium took control over the Congo territory in the late 1800s and ended up causing the deaths of over ten million African people. At first Leopold focused on the ivory that the area could bring in from elephants but it quickly turned into a need for rubber by any means necessary. African women were imprisoned until their husbands could come up with enough rubber to set them free. Natives were punished for the minor offenses by being whipped with a chicotte, a rope of twisted hippopotamus hide. Also, for every bullet used a soldier had to bring back the right hand of a native so that their superiors new that they had killed someone and not wasted the bullet. This often led to the frequent amputations of still living Africans.
Leopold’s reign of terror depleted the population in more ways than just the murder of the areas people. The Africans were also killed by the diseases that the European settlers, army men, and missionaries brought over such as small pocks and the sleeping disease, which were the most common. Starvation was another major form of death for the Africans. As people were running from the oncoming European armies, they were forced to survive in the jungle for long periods of time. Babies were also left behind in the villages because the adults were afraid that the babies’ cries would give away their locations of where they were hiding. The men that had to collect rubber did not have enough time to go in search of food and the women held in the prisons by the European soldiers were given next to nothing to eat. Africans reproduction rate was also limited do to the fact that women took precautions specifically not to get pregnant for fear that if they were large with child they could not outrun the oncoming soldiers or if they had babies in their arms they would be slower to escape the threats the soldiers posed.
Eventually through a few explorers and missionaries, the atrocities of Leopold’s armies, The Force Publique, were exposed and the reign of Leopold’s rule in the Congo lasted only around twenty-three years; although, that reign marked a national holocaust not easy for anyone to forget.
The European powers began to take over the continent of Africa, cutting the land up into small regions controlled by the European nations. One of the most notorious of these Europeans countries to acquire a sizable amount of land was the country of Belgium with their shrewd leader, King Leopold II. During his reign over the territory of the Congo, he brought with him death and destruction. His whole reason for controlling the territory was to make money and to gain himself more power and prestige within the world. What happened in the Congo region was a holocaust on the scale of the one that would be created by the Nazi’s in Germany half a century later. The devastation caused during Leopold’s reign exterminated entire populations and destroyed multiple civilizations; imperialism took a great toll on the lives of people in Africa.
The imperialism of the African continent by the European countries is what in fact really devastated African populations, not the greater known African slave trade, although that did contribute to the problem. The interior of Africa was hit lesser due to the slave trade than the coastal ports; the ruin to the interior came due to exploration and the need for the European powers to obtain more land. When explorers started to venture into the interior of the Congo at the end of the nineteenth century they discovered vast lands inhabited by people the Europeans thought were uncivilized and not fit to govern themselves. The two most famous explorers were Stanley and Livingston who explored the region of Africa’s Congo. From the beginning, these two explorers surveyed the area of the Congo region, traversing Africa from the east to west coast. they came back to Europe with new information about the lands and how easy it would be for a country to take it over.
King Leopold of Belgium took control over the Congo territory in the late 1800s and ended up causing the deaths of over ten million African people. At first Leopold focused on the ivory that the area could bring in from elephants but it quickly turned into a need for rubber by any means necessary. African women were imprisoned until their husbands could come up with enough rubber to set them free. Natives were punished for the minor offenses by being whipped with a chicotte, a rope of twisted hippopotamus hide. Also, for every bullet used a soldier had to bring back the right hand of a native so that their superiors new that they had killed someone and not wasted the bullet. This often led to the frequent amputations of still living Africans.
Leopold’s reign of terror depleted the population in more ways than just the murder of the areas people. The Africans were also killed by the diseases that the European settlers, army men, and missionaries brought over such as small pocks and the sleeping disease, which were the most common. Starvation was another major form of death for the Africans. As people were running from the oncoming European armies, they were forced to survive in the jungle for long periods of time. Babies were also left behind in the villages because the adults were afraid that the babies’ cries would give away their locations of where they were hiding. The men that had to collect rubber did not have enough time to go in search of food and the women held in the prisons by the European soldiers were given next to nothing to eat. Africans reproduction rate was also limited do to the fact that women took precautions specifically not to get pregnant for fear that if they were large with child they could not outrun the oncoming soldiers or if they had babies in their arms they would be slower to escape the threats the soldiers posed.
Eventually through a few explorers and missionaries, the atrocities of Leopold’s armies, The Force Publique, were exposed and the reign of Leopold’s rule in the Congo lasted only around twenty-three years; although, that reign marked a national holocaust not easy for anyone to forget.
I hope the africamuseum in Tervuren, which has been renovated and will reopen in december 2018, Will deal with this very dark page in the history of belgium. And not as a footnote! We shall see....