Hochschild writes a banger in King Leopold’s Ghost. This is a wonderfully compiled and thought piece of non-fiction. Hochschild shines a brilliant light on the atrocities of colonization in the Belgian Congo. Actually, the personally owned colony, owned by the King himself.
This book is an amazingly researched piece of text. The opinions provided by the author are amazingly well considered. Indeed, Hochschild not only shows the devastation in the Congo, but relates it’s similarity to atrocities committed by the Portuguese in Angola, the Germans in the Cameroon’s and the French in their owned Sub-saharan African territories. He also briefly mentions the enslavement of the Congolese in the context of the trans-atlantic slave trade, the arabic slave trade and, previous to that the indigenous enslavement.
All these contextual takes are considered in the correct amounts. It’s clear Leopold’s hold over the Congo was by far the worst.
Hochschild also outlines the actions of some truly wacky and zany characters. From the horrid Leon Rom, to the maybe worst swashbuckling explorers of the time (Stanley amongst others), there is a menagerie of characters in this novel. The most important of those being E. D. Morel and Casement who fought for the freedom of the Congo.
This book is an amazing introduction to this period of colonialism. I have since added to my bookshelf ‘the heart of darkness’ by Joesph Conrad (who makes an appearance in this book), and I am searching for more colonial african texts.
I highly recommend this book, even though sometimes it is an incredibly tough read. Not in the prose, but in the subject matter.