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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Rape, Slavery, Violence, Colonisation, War
Minor: Homophobia, Suicide, Excrement
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
dark
informative
medium-paced
Not light reading, but exceptionally well written. My only other resource for the region was The Poisonwood Bible, reading which was my impetus for wanting to learn about the area. My sister recommended this as kind of the standard text for the basics of early Congolese history.
Since this was mostly new information, many of the details have been forgotten, but I still know more than I did before, and am once again reminded of how little I know about anything in the world.
Highly recommend.
The next stop on my Congolese history tour will be Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, which my sister recommended for this interested in what went down with “Independence,” Lumumba and Mobutu.
That will be after a short break to read some books from other family members.
Since this was mostly new information, many of the details have been forgotten, but I still know more than I did before, and am once again reminded of how little I know about anything in the world.
Highly recommend.
The next stop on my Congolese history tour will be Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, which my sister recommended for this interested in what went down with “Independence,” Lumumba and Mobutu.
That will be after a short break to read some books from other family members.
This was an extremely difficult subject matter so I had to set it aside quite a bit. It straddles the line of being atrocious (due to the actual historical events) and boring.
I loved how this book was written, keeping a book about history exciting is not an easy task. Need to check if the information is correct though
Overall I think its a must read, interesting, entertaining and educating
Overall I think its a must read, interesting, entertaining and educating
I think this is very well written, but I skimmed the last third--it's such an important period of history/terror/colonization for people to know about, but it.is.brutal.
I hope hell is real simply so king Leopold can burn for the rest of time.
I gobbled this up after reading [b:The Poisonwood Bible|7244|The Poisonwood Bible|Barbara Kingsolver|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165609814s/7244.jpg|810663]. The Congo is one wild and crazy place.
It's hard to say that you 'loved' a book like this when the process of reading ranged from disgust, horror and rage. Like others have mentioned, i think I have a pretty good grasp on general history and the 'big' horrible events and Leopold's Congo is one that is grossly under-remembered. It really is a perfect and horrible perfect storm. The violence and exploitation of the Congolese people; the concerted effort to rebrand these horrors into assistance for the native people; the complicity of so many. Hochschild does at least give rightful attention to those throughout the decades who passionately stood up against the evils taking place in the Congo. It's a shame that names like E.D. Model, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard are not known but Henry Morton Stanley is.
It's not a fun read but it is an important one.
It's not a fun read but it is an important one.