Main entry:

Hochschild, Adam, author.

Title & Author:

King Leopold's ghost : a story of greed, terror, and heroism in Colonial Africa / Adam Hochschild.

Edition:

First Mariner Books edition.

Publication:

Boston : Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999.
©1998

Description:

376 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map, portraits ; 23 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-360) and index.
"The traders area kidnapping our people" -- "I shall not give up the chase" -- The fox crosses the dream -- The magnificent cake -- "The treaties must grant us everything" -- From Florida to Berlin -- Under the Yacht Club flag -- The first heretic -- Where there aren't no Ten Commandments -- Meeting Mr. Kurtz -- The wood that weeps -- A secret society of murderers -- David and Goliath -- Breaking into the thieves' kitchen -- To flood his deeds with day -- A reckoning -- "Journalists won't give you receipts" -- No man is a stranger -- Victory? -- The Great Forgetting -- Looking back: A personal afterword.

Summary:

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million -- all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold's Ghost is the account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this story alive. He knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II.

Resources:
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description

ISBN:

0618001905 (pbk.)
9780618001903 (pbk.)

Subject:

Léopold II, King of the Belgians, 1835-1909.
Forced labor Congo (Democratic Republic) History 19th century.
Forced labor Congo (Democratic Republic) History 20th century.
Indigenous peoples Congo (Democratic Republic) History 19th century.
Indigenous peoples Congo (Democratic Republic) History 20th century.
Human rights movements History 19th century.
Human rights movements History 20th century.
Politics, Practical.
Human rights.
Colonialism history
Politics
Human Rights
History, 19th Century
History, 20th Century
Travail forcé Congo (République démocratique) Histoire 19e siècle.
Travail forcé Congo (République démocratique) Histoire 20e siècle.
Autochtones Congo (République démocratique) Histoire 19e siècle.
Autochtones Congo (République démocratique) Histoire 20e siècle.
Mouvements des droits de l'homme Histoire 19e siècle.
Mouvements des droits de l'homme Histoire 20e siècle.
Politique.
Droits de l'homme (Droit international)
Médecine Histoire 19e siècle.
Médecine Histoire 20e siècle.
politics.
Race relations
Politics and government
Indigenous peoples
Human rights movements
Forced labor
Kolonialismus
Ethnische Beziehungen
Zwangsarbeit
Congo (Democratic Republic) Politics and government 1885-1908.
Congo (Democratic Republic) Race relations History 19th century.
Congo (Democratic Republic) Race relations History 20th century.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Belgium
Congo (République démocratique) Politique et gouvernement 1885-1908.
Congo (République démocratique) Relations raciales Histoire 19e siècle.
Congo (République démocratique) Relations raciales Histoire 20e siècle.
Congo (Democratic Republic)
Kongo (Demokratische Republik)

Form/genre:

Biography
Biographies
History

Holdings:

Location: Library main 300051
Call No.: BIB 246216
Status: Available