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A review by clarareads1000books
Congo. Een geschiedenis by David Van Reybrouck
5.0
Super exhaustive and yet fascinating history book on the Democratic Republic of Congo. Starting from the early colonial period under the rule of king Leopold the II and spanning all the way to 2010, this book makes you experience every era of recent Congolese history. Thanks to Reybrouck's wrting style, where he combines bird-eye-view historical writing with anecdotes from his own travels in the country, and most importantly, countless personal stories from Congolese people he interviewed, you don't get bored or overwhelmed from the sheer amount of information in the book. The personal perspectives on major historical events are a much better way for a reader to recreate and experience this history, rather than general statistics, which can easily have a desensitizing effect.
If there is one thing I learned, it is that Congo has a truly tragic history, with an insurmountable amount of human suffering, and it is only the question if it will ever recover from 200 years of misery. Yet, it is clearly a bustling place full of resourceful people who manage to survive even in terrible conditions. Some aspects that Van Reybrouck touches on seemed very alien or unexpected to me and therefore fascinated me to no end, such as the incredible importance of music as a medium for political and commercial propaganda, the mercantile link that has emerged between Congo and China in the last 20 years, and the fact that tribalism was mostly introduced by the colonials.
I listened to the 25-hour long audiobook recorded by Matthijs Deen (in Dutch) and I believe Deen's narration style is a perfect match for Van Reybrouck's writing. A true recommendation.
If there is one thing I learned, it is that Congo has a truly tragic history, with an insurmountable amount of human suffering, and it is only the question if it will ever recover from 200 years of misery. Yet, it is clearly a bustling place full of resourceful people who manage to survive even in terrible conditions. Some aspects that Van Reybrouck touches on seemed very alien or unexpected to me and therefore fascinated me to no end, such as the incredible importance of music as a medium for political and commercial propaganda, the mercantile link that has emerged between Congo and China in the last 20 years, and the fact that tribalism was mostly introduced by the colonials.
I listened to the 25-hour long audiobook recorded by Matthijs Deen (in Dutch) and I believe Deen's narration style is a perfect match for Van Reybrouck's writing. A true recommendation.