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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
A gripping and horrifying tale of Colonial exploitation and the birth of an international human rights consciousness. 3.89 Martinie glasses
challenging
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informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
challenging
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Reads like a novel. An extremely disturbing and eye-opening account of King Leopold’s colonization of the Congo and slaughter of countless African’s.
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
An absolutely haunting read. Hochschild's writing style is very easy to follow and he presents the history of the Belgian atrocities in the Congo in an easy to digest form. While reading this book I felt angry, sad, and most of all, disgusted. Hochschild does not hold back. An excellent book
adventurous
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medium-paced
Finally done, and still reeling from this book. It was hard to read at times, though Hochschild does include some comedic bits to highlight the ridiculousness of some expeditions, decrees, and royal expenses.
Some initial thoughts are that greed is indeed the root of all evil, and Europe has an incredibly violent legacy. The sheer complexity of simultaneous world events left me dazed. At the same time there was mass murder in the Congo by Belgians (over 10 million estimated dead), the Germans were conducting a genocide of the Herero people in Namibia + experimenting with the original concentration camps, and Americans were torturing and killing Filipino soldiers, besides participating in the full-on segregation of black people. The English were brutalizing people in remote India, and the French and the Portugese were using Belgian-style tactics in their African colonies. It's too much violence to wrap one's head around.
Museums about Central Africa in modern-day Belgium don't mention the fact that King Leopold II's rubber-terror regime murdered 10 million people, and we go on admiring the architectural style of the beautiful palaces he built in Brussels without realizing how they came to be. It's so easy to simply sink into cynicism after reading about events like these (trying hard not to), but I'm reminding myself that it's better to know this information than to go on not knowing and not understanding why countries like the DRC continue to struggle with political and economic instability. I hope more people learn about these events and grapple with the discomfort of realizing human capacity for greed and violence. It can also foster a deeper understanding of why some previously colonized countries stay trapped in a vicious cycle of corruption and poverty, which MANY "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" evangelists fail to understand.
One positive is that I am glad to have learned about figures like E.D. Morel, Roger Casement, George Washington Williams, and William Sheppard--they deserve to be spoken about in history classrooms. It was especially interesting to learn about the African-American pastors and activists for the cause of the Congolese, and how at times they were even admired for their work.
A hard book to read not for its style, which was straightforward and sympathetic, but for its content. Would highly recommend, but maybe intersperse it with some light-hearted fiction.
Some initial thoughts are that greed is indeed the root of all evil, and Europe has an incredibly violent legacy. The sheer complexity of simultaneous world events left me dazed. At the same time there was mass murder in the Congo by Belgians (over 10 million estimated dead), the Germans were conducting a genocide of the Herero people in Namibia + experimenting with the original concentration camps, and Americans were torturing and killing Filipino soldiers, besides participating in the full-on segregation of black people. The English were brutalizing people in remote India, and the French and the Portugese were using Belgian-style tactics in their African colonies. It's too much violence to wrap one's head around.
Museums about Central Africa in modern-day Belgium don't mention the fact that King Leopold II's rubber-terror regime murdered 10 million people, and we go on admiring the architectural style of the beautiful palaces he built in Brussels without realizing how they came to be. It's so easy to simply sink into cynicism after reading about events like these (trying hard not to), but I'm reminding myself that it's better to know this information than to go on not knowing and not understanding why countries like the DRC continue to struggle with political and economic instability. I hope more people learn about these events and grapple with the discomfort of realizing human capacity for greed and violence. It can also foster a deeper understanding of why some previously colonized countries stay trapped in a vicious cycle of corruption and poverty, which MANY "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" evangelists fail to understand.
One positive is that I am glad to have learned about figures like E.D. Morel, Roger Casement, George Washington Williams, and William Sheppard--they deserve to be spoken about in history classrooms. It was especially interesting to learn about the African-American pastors and activists for the cause of the Congolese, and how at times they were even admired for their work.
A hard book to read not for its style, which was straightforward and sympathetic, but for its content. Would highly recommend, but maybe intersperse it with some light-hearted fiction.
The racism and greed that lead to the shocking depredations of Leopold's Congo Free State make for a great history book, even as they filled me with disgust at my fellow humans. Reading this right after other books about European Imperialism like Empire's Crossroads and From the Ruins of Empire have led me to believe that every attempt by a powerful nation to subjugate another screams of a collective psychosis that must be reckoned with. But the examples of people like Casement, Morel, and Williams provide a path for us in the present and future generations not to fall into the same traps.
really ruined any regard for or desire to visit the belgians.