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

First Line: On January 28, 1841, a quarter-century after Tuckey's failed expedition, the man who would spectacularly accomplish what Tuckey tried to do was born in the small Welsh market town of Denbigh.

Over a century has passed since the events depicted in this book, and the first thing I learned was that-- somewhere along the line-- I had fallen prey to King Leopold II of Belgium's public relations team. For quite a long time, Leopold was known as a great humanitarian. The real King Leopold was quite horrifying.

In the 1880s while Europe carved Africa into colonies to harvest as much of the continent's natural resources as possible, King Leopold II (who scathingly referred to his own country as "small country, small people") was show more frantic not to be excluded from the feast. The vast colony he seized in 1885 as his private fiefdom included most of the unexplored basin of the Congo River.

Leopold then proceeded to put in place a reign of terror that would end in the deaths of four to eight million people-- a genocide of Holocaust proportions. Those indigenous peoples who survived went to work mining ore or harvesting rubber while Leopold squirreled away billions of dollars in hidden bank accounts around the world.

Although the king's ministers tried to keep a very tight lid on what was really going on in the Congo, the word began to get out and circulate to a wider and wider audience, due mainly to men willing to risk their jobs, their reputations and their lives in order to put an end to the atrocities. Their efforts to expose these crimes led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century.

The strength of Hochschild's book is that he uses the wealth of information that can be found in actual eyewitness accounts. I have to admit that I had to read this book in short doses. Normally I am not squeamish, but as I read what Leopold sanctioned in order to reap untold wealth-- all the while painting himself as a great and wise humanitarian-- I became sickened.

There are those who may read of the genocides in Africa in recent decades and think, "So what? It's just one tribe wiping out another tribe. There are plenty more to take their places. It's not as though white people are being murdered." Once again, a piece of forgotten history shows us that the indigenous peoples of Africa learned all about genocide... from the "civilized" whites.

As painful as this book can be to read, I'm glad I read it-- and I hope you consider reading it as well. show less

This book begins with the assertion of evil. It made me uneasy. I prefer to hear the facts and draw my own conclusions. But I felt far less willing to grant King Leopold’s side another instant of attention after realizing that the facts had been obscured for a century or more by repression of documents relating to the case in Belgian state archives. Better that we finally uncover the ugly truth and take its lesson: unbridled greed may be the ugliest, most unforgivable, most unnecessary sin of all.

How can we not have known this horrible history? It happened only a hundred years ago. Though I am embarrassed I did not know the anguished history and perpetuation of evil in the Congo, I stand in good company. Hochschild tells us of a show more Belgian diplomat serving in the 1970’s Congo who learned of the atrocities by a chance remark from a chieftain recalling “the first time” of rubber collection. This diplomat-turned-historian, Jules Marchal, spent decades after his retirement from civil service investigating and documenting King Leopold’s personal fiefdom in the Congo and its long list of crimes there at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

What does become amply clear from Hochschild’s account is how it is possible to mount a resistance to a great evil. Resistance requires exceptional people willing to bear witness, but also organization and persistence. Edmund Dene Morel, the shipping clerk who recognized in the 1890’s what was happening in the Congo, immediately called out the injustices he saw there and never hesitated in his mission to publicize it in the years that followed. Fortunately, he was an articulate man with a convincing speaking style and he had enormous drive. He managed to gather like-minded folk to himself to voice a larger protest.

The life of Irishman Roger Casement, the gay man knighted by the Queen for his work as a diplomat and later hanged by Britain as a traitor to the crown for his work as an Irish patriot, stands as an example of the strange dissociation countries in power display when someone challenges their economic and political interests. I fell in love with him a little, Sir Roger Casement, as a man of great courage and vision: he saw what men are and did not despair, though one might say that, in the end, he died of it.

Black Americans who spent their adult lives speaking out against the horror happening in Africa, the Reverend William Henry Sheppard and George Washington Williams, have finally found their way back into history. Many Christian missionaries, though notably, not Catholic missionaries, did their part in publicizing crimes in pursuit of endless demand for rubber.

What I liked most about the book was the way Hochschild brought us past the period of the Congo revelations to the present day, telling us how we could have been ignorant of the time and the period. He followed the lives of Morel and Chapman to their ends, and introduced us to Ambassador Marchal of Belgium. He follows the Congo after Leopold through its Belgian colony status to the demand for self-rule and the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first legally-elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He tells us of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, Congolese President who continued crimes against his country that Leopold had begun, this time with American support.

I began to realize that some of the surviving chiefs of Leopold’s crimes were sometimes collaborators. Their behaviors have been perpetuated over the generations until there is nothing but misery left in that place. Now I understand better how a country so rich in natural resources could be so socially impoverished. The crimes continue to the present. What can be the solution to this kind of moral destitution?

I listened to the Random House Audio of this title, read by Geoffrey Howard. show less

No doubt it's important when writing a book about a colonial genocide like this that the author makes clear the viewpoint through which we are viewing it, and what the long term consequences are. Hochschild minces no words in lamenting the lack of Congolese voices we have during this period, between Leopold's entry into the Congo during the 1870's until after his death in 1909, and it's in no small part because of this that the facts of Leopold's reign have gone largely unnoticed or received indifferently until well past the turn of the 21st century. Hochschild is also sober about the outcomes of the humanitarian movement that sprung up in the late 1890's, recognizing the tangible impact it had on stifling the more hardcore crimes show more against Congolese communities, and at the same time acknowledging the continued state of colonization that the area experienced until it's independence from Belgium 1960, when it was cast off into a totally different if no less dangerous jungle of global politics, completely unprepared to become solvent as a nation.

The sheer amount of wealth extracted from the region by colonial powers - whether by ivory, rubber, or human beings themselves - through the use of forced labor and terror is staggering. Like icing on a shit cake, this wealth was never returned to the place and the people it was taken from, in this case mostly ending up immortalized in the monuments, plazas, and chateaus that Leopold constructed and even now serves as the fodder that tourists go to Belgium in search of. What a strange case this was, when it comes to European colonialism. The brutality is much the same, but I'm unaware of another royalty that was able to subvert his way into personally controlling and benefiting from such an atrocity, all the while under the guise of humanitarianism. In this way, Hochschild describes why Leopold's reign is notable amongst a dark sea of similar crimes against humanity.

Hochschild strikes a fine balance between narrative storytelling and factual accounting. This is really my ideal mix of the two; enough narrative to keep me engaged through its density, but enough reality to make me feel like I'm actually learning something, that my time isn't being wasted by prose that's better suited to a work of fiction. In my estimation one of the hallmarks of really good works of non-fiction are also the points of interest that get churned up that the author doesn't have to space to fully explore, that beg you for further research. These little bits of gravy are plentiful here, Roger Casement, E.D. Morel, and George Washington Williams among them, not to mention the numerous African cultures mentioned. show less

A necessary and important book, popular history at its best. I didn't know nearly 10 million Congolese died as the result of Belgian colonization in the late 19th century. By comparison about 9 million European combatants died in World War I. This book fills a major gap. It's read by heads of state, been made into movies, on university syllabi etc.. a remarkable and important history. It's also required reading before taking on Heart of Darkness, which I've read three times, but now realize how little I understood, I look forward to re-reading it again.

I'm giving it 5-stars, which is rare for me. It transcends being 'merely' well written and compelling. It changed world views, particularly in Belgium and Africa. Although there is show more nothing in the book not found elsewhere, Hochschild has made it accessible. The very phrase "King Leopold's Ghost" is enough to illicit a nod of understanding, it's become a landmark on the cultural map that continues to be widely read 13 years later. show less

This is the engrossing, well-told account of an incredibly appalling bit of human history.

Spoiler: King Leopold II of Belgium is the inexcusable, unapologetic villain of the piece. Described as “too intelligent to hide it,” there’s a sort of horrifying fascination to observing the cleverness with which he manipulates charitable organizations, religious organizations, governments, and the press into supporting his infamous scheme.

First, he flatters the insecure Henry Stanley (the African explorer of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” fame) into re-entering Africa for the purpose of mapping the theretofore unclaimed lands of the Congo. Then he fans the flames of European “Arab slavery” hysteria (“Arab countries are engaging show more in slavery! The horror!” cry countries actively enforcing forced labor in their own colonies) to convince the world that Belgium’s stewardship of the region is a necessary humanitarian mission, winning himself an international reputation as an enlightened leader. And then he sets about exploiting his new colonial holdings in the most ruthless imaginable way, implementing a system of quotas and incentives (initially for ivory, later for rubber) guaranteed to reward and perpetuate atrocities to include slavery, torture, kidnapping, maiming, rape, and murder. Estimates suggest that Leopold’s activities likely led to 10M deaths.

Fortunately, about halfway through the book – just when you’re questioning whether humanity as a species deserves to continue to exist – Hochschild’s narrative transitions to the efforts taken by reformers to expose the horrors of Leopold’s colonial empire. God bless number crunchers: it’s one of these, a fellow named Morel, who finally figures out that if ships returning from Africa stuffed with ivory and rubber are returning to Africa stuffed not with trading goods but with guns and ammunition, what’s happening almost certainly isn’t “free trade.” A man of inexhaustible energy and cleverness (he hits as very Alexander Hamilton-ish), he orchestrates the global campaign that finally exposes Leopold’s horrific empire.

Not that this resulted in the immediate dismantling of the abominable system Leopold set in motion – it was the coming of cultivated rubber plantations that mostly contributed to that. Nor did this prevent other European countries from continuing similar abhorrent practices in their own African and East Indian colonies. Which is worth mentioning because it reminds us why books like this one – authoritative, frank, lucid, entertaining – are important. Read it for the entertainment value, but also pay attention to the lessons it has to teach us - about the lengths immoral, narcassistic, greedy leaders will go to in order to monetize their power, but also about how the courage and passion of a few individuals can expose corruption and alter the course of history. show less

King Leopold II of Belgium managed to convince the world (for a while) that he was a humanitarian and philanthropist. Meanwhile, he was extracting the riches of the Congo for personal gain and ruthlessly exploiting the Congolese, with the death toll eventually estimated at ten million people. This book provides a history of the Congo from pre-colonial times through Mobutu’s regime. Through the efforts George Washington Williams, Rev. William Sheppard, E.D. Morel, and Roger Casement, the abuses became widely known and Leopold was forced to relinquish control to Belgium. These main paid a high price for their activism in the area of human rights.

“The Congo reform movement had two achievements that lasted far beyond its own time. show more First…it put a remarkable amount of information on the historical record. And there it remains, despite the strenuous efforts of Leopold and his admirers, then and now, to burn it, to ignore it, to distort it with mythologizing. That record of truth matters, especially for a continent whose history is otherwise so filled with silences. [Second]… among its supporters, it kept alive a tradition, a way of seeing the world, a human capacity for outrage at pain inflicted on another human being, no matter whether that pain is inflicted on someone of another color, in another country, at another end of the earth.”

This book is an engagingly written, logically organized history that provides a revealing analysis of the colonization of the Congo, and the oppression of its inhabitants. Hochschild relates Leopold’s activities in the Congo to the larger picture of other countries’ exploitation of Africa. He also gives the reader a good idea of why this part of history had previously been largely forgotten (or covered up).

This is the type of history book that reads as a story of man’s inhumanity to man. It is meticulously footnoted, and the author has attempted to use primary sources as much as possible. His only regret is that there is such limited source material from the Congolese tribes. The photos are heart-breaking. Highly recommended. show less

Really excellent book that I have wanted to read since seeing an excerpt of the documentary of the same name in school. Hochschild tells the fascinating, horrifying tale of the economic pillaging of the Central African and fleshes out the larger-than-life players in its inception and eventual demise: the intrepid explorer, the Irish patriot, the , and of course the scheming, vainglorious king whose greed sparked the entire endeavor. The end chapters of this book touch on some of the problems that Western involvement has caused in the region in the twentieth century post-independence, but more importantly the provide insight into why so many African nations are economically and politically disadvantaged- King Leopold's destructive legacy show more is one that should not be overlooked. show less