Rating: 
Summary: Objective and Thorough Analysis WITHOUT European Bashing
Review: This book is one of the most carefully researched popular works on African history. Contrary to what some cursory reviewers have written, Hochshild approached the subject by reference to original primary sources -- letters, diaries, original manuscripts of Belgian officials and numerous others who were at the heart of this shameful period. The list of references at the end of the book lays out the depth of his research. Need I say more in defense of the author -- the Belgian Prime Minister, recently apologized for his country's nefarious role in Congo. Another example of the author's objectivity is how he describes the personality of some anti-Leopold activists such as Williams, pointing out their frailties just as much as Leopold's himself. He also points out the preexisting practices among African tribes which were also reprehensible by modern standards. There is no hidden agenda in this book -- what Leopold did in Congo was ghastly, and this book should not be dismissed as "political correctness" -- it is the clear and verifiable truth. Specially in this day and age where we feel emboldened to refer to despotic regimes as "evil", we should feel quite confortable in referring to Leopold's reign of terror as "evil." Furthermore, this period was even more ghastly because it was carried out through direct deception of many well-meaning European and American philanthropists, who were given to believe that enterprise was being carried out for humanitarian reasons. Yes, this exposition should not be used as a means for perpetuating tensions between the colonized and the colonizers. We should indeed move on, but reconciliation is only possible when there is an unequivocal acknowledgement of past injustices, which this book provides with adequate objectivity. We must remember that objectivity does not preclude culpability -- with adequate evidence, it is the academic and moral duty of all analysts to acknowledge the culpability of certain players in a conflict. In this case, the burden of blame clearly rests with Leopold's regime, as described through their own words and deeds, and as documented admirably by the author.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: I don't really like to read that much, but I was assigned this book in a Western Civ class as test material. I was initially turned off by its length, and the fact that I don't really like history, but once I started reading it I enjoyed it very much. Hochschild's style makes this book very comprehensible and an easy read, while keeping you on the edge of your seat. Pick it up today. I'm sure if I didn't have to read it for a grade, I would've liked it even more.
Rating: 
Summary: "The horror!, the horror!"
Review: These dying words of Mr Kurtz were first read in 1899 when HEART OF DARKNESS was published. Twain's KING LEOPOLD'S SOLILOQUY came out in 1905 and Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle wrote THE CRIME OF THE CONGO in 1909. Additionally, the Congo Reform Association (in support of which both Twain and Conan-Doyle wrote their books) began operating in 1904 with the sole purpose of bringing to public attention the terrible situation in the Congo Free State under the rule of Belgium's King Leopold II. It's obvious then that the horrific treatment of the Congolese as described in KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST was known about and well documented. The issue here is not one of a lack of awareness. In fact Hochschild says there was "a storm of righteous protest" and moral outrage in England and America when the facts became known. No, the issue is more to do with why this genocide of 100 years ago remains such a relatively unknown story and is rarely ever mentioned when the topic of discussion is man's cruelty to man. It's not because the carnage was insignificant. In terms of numbers the death toll stacks up well with other holocausts. Hochschild estimates the number of Congolese that died between 1885 - 1920 from between 5 to 10 million.In attempting to come to terms with this and explain why there seems to be so little present-day consciousness of what took place, the author admits to his own lack of knowledge prior to his research. A partial answer is that in the Congo today, there is very little information available on this period. More significantly though it is because of the special nature of the Congo and its colonial history. But it seems to me the book shows that most importantly, in a country that has known only paroxysms, death is a constant and numbers are merely matters of scale on a continuum. The special characteristic of the Congo is that it is incredibly blessed with natural mineral wealth - coal, cobalt, copper, diamonds, gold, manganese, offshiore petroleum, silver, tin, uranium and zinc. Not even mentioned yet are the products that this book talks about and what King Leopold was greedily ravaging the country for - rubber, ivory and timber. Against this background, and with interests in Belgium, France, Germany, and England eyeing this and other African wealth, who really is surprised to learn that economic considerations and international political deliberations have in the past swept human-interest issues under the carpet. Hochschild does an admirable job of highlighting the human rights context of his story. For him the heroes are the two founders of the Congo Reform Association - Edmund Dene Morel and Roger Casement and the villains are of course King Leopold and the man whom the King initially depended upon to organize the Congo Free State - Henry Morton Stanley. Morel's "flash of moral recognition" that something was terribly wrong in the Congo is how we begin this book. While we can see some of the colonials as illustrative of the heart of darkness, and Hochschild's description of some of the massacres is indeed gruesome, this book is far more than a simple, sensationalist, expose on the evils of the white-man and colonialism. There are some interesting sub-texts here. While white missionaries were instrumental in bringing much of the attrocities to light they were also not above dark deeds. Initially the Belgian church in the Congo portrayed criticisms as an attack on Roman Catholicism by protestant missionaries. This may have also been due to the fact that some were American, and black - George Washington Williams and William Sheppard for instance. Both catholics and protestants were also initially fooled by Leopold's pious pronouncements and believed that he was unaware of what was being done in his name. The Congo is a huge country. It has an ancient history and culture and it is populated with various different ethnic groups including pygmies. It was visited by Arab traders and slavers long before Europeans arrived and now, decades after independence, still struggles with issues related to political, economic, and social cohesion. KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST only covers a part of this history and therefore only offers a limited answer to the puzzle that is today's sorry state known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However even as a partial answer, it is well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: The telling of an old scandal
Review: The 19th Century was the high point of colonalism. This book is the retelling of one of the scandals of the period. King Leopold of Belgium used his own rescources to gain the Congo not as a colony of his own country but as his own bit of real estate. The Congo at the time consisted of a huge area. It was largely tropical forest and not that thickly inhabited. To make money from his enterprise Leopold had the local natives collect rubber. Naturally they were not paid for this and had to be forced to do it at gun point. The main import of the Congo colony was firearms. The soldiers employed by Leopold could not waste bullets and had to provide evidence that any used had been used for good purpose. They thus had to cut off the hands of those they shot. Roger Casement was a British official who noticed what was going on. He had a colourful career and was later hanged as a spy. He helped to show the truth behind what was at that point one of the greatest crimes against humanity carried out. (Of course over the next hundred years it would be dwarfed by events in Europe) The scandal at the time was considerable and led to novels like "Heart of Darkness" by Conrad. This book is an interesting retelling of the tail and if you are interested it is a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: bottom line
Review: These are of course very difficult subjects to sleuth out, but..... His analysis of estimated people killed in Congo (5-8 million) is less than rigorous. Likewise, rigorous analysis of what ($) Leopold put into the Congo vs. what he took out is lacking. Was this a successful venture for Leopold financially (on a return-on-investment basis)? Maybe or maybe not, but Hockschild does not prove it by pointing out that Leopold put up a few statues and built a wing on his chateau.......Leo was't exactly poor to begin with.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply Disturbing, but a Must Read
Review: This detailed yet accessible history of the colonization of the Congo is exceptionally well-written. Hochschild tells the story of the colonization of the Belgian Congo by providing a thorough biography of King Leopold II and illuminating his astounding greed at the expense of millions of lives. This book was amazingly engrossing. I enjoy reading history, but I think that even a person who is not customarily drawn to history or even non-fiction would find it to be so well-written that they would thoroughly engage with this book. For those of us trying to better understand modern Africa and the legacy of slavery and colonization, this is an essential read.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: For such a large subject and the amount of research that supposedly went into this book I was expecting a larger book and more detail. Furthermore, on page 139 there is a song transcribed
by a missionary which refers to an animal which has never been found in Africa and is highly unlikely to have even been heard of by the Africans at this time. A small point but it makes me wonder how throughly some of the rest of the facts in the book have been checked out.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Blink
Review: As the end of the 19th century neared, Leopold II, King of Belgium, dreamed of being a competing world power. This was particularly difficult for him to accomplish considering the size and resources of Belgium compared to those of the immense United States, and the British Empire. Leopold was able to devise a plan utilizing colonization in order to establish his own empire. His plan was to take over the Congo Basin of South Africa where European rule had not been implemented as of yet, and extract the resources from deep within the jungle.
The key to conquering the Congo had nothing to do with manpower, money, or guns; it was all about creating a humanitarian façade in order to hide his true intentions. Leopold was able to pull this off magnificently. The world over praised him for his work in the Congo: eliminating slave trade; civilizing the indigenes; and doing it all without benefiting personally in terms of wealth. The actualities of his rule included forced labor, cruelty, and plenty of revenue from stolen resources. The picture he painted to the rest of the world was so elaborately false that it is truly a work of art.
Without this façade Leopold II would not have been able to take over the Congo all by himself. The wealth he amassed, and the amount to which he was praised and supported as a humanitarian shows the effectiveness of his propaganda. To the eyes of the world Leopold II was overseeing the civilization of the Congo: bringing schools, churches, and railroads. In reality he was controlling and exploiting the indigenes and the raw resources of the entire basin; the rubber industry set up by Leopold II encouraged slavery, torture, and a rape of the land. Without that cloud he would have been opposed quicker and with more strength than when his actions were discovered.
Hochschild compared the atrocities that occurred in the Congo rubber industry to those committed in the Nazi movement. The cruelty was extensive. Slaves were worked until their deaths. Law was harshly enforced (slaves were shot, mutilated, whipped to death, and otherwise abused). Sentries employed by Leopold were accountable for each bullet they fired (bullets were only to be used in a useful manner i.e. killing a slave, usually a severed hand was required by an officer as proof to the kill). These acts, along with raids, disease, and famine (brought on by Leopold's regime), accounted for the death of over 10 million indigenous people.
The abuse implemented in his reign created efficiency through intimidation. The amount of rubber resources an indigenous tribe was required to harvest was beyond their capability in normal circumstances. They had to concentrate all their time to harvesting, and all their manpower, and this still didn't do the job. The slashing of rubber vines ensued, which killed the vines, and this led to the diminishment of natural rubber in the Congo. While they were out harvesting the rubber sap to fulfill their quotas, their women and children were being held hostage by sentries. As a result, they were unable to spend any time upkeeping their villages, or tending their crops. Their way of life was ruined through many mediums.
This book documents a lot of this abuse regardless of the general lack of resources. Most of the resources from Leopold's reign are written by the officers; there are extremely few cases in which Africans tell their tales and experiences. Since it is the oppressors who are conveying the situation to the rest of the world, they are easily able to hide their actions. It obviously does not last forever; eventually there are people, such as E. D. Morel, George Washington Williams, and Roger Casement, who go to the Congo and discover the reality. E. D. Morel was able to hypothesize a slave industry while he was back in Europe when he saw Congo ships arrive and drop off rubber and ivory, then turn around and go back without bringing anything to pay for the cargo. His claims were proved and eventually he and Casement started the first human rights movement of the 20th century.
Hochschild tells us this tale introducing many influential people in both the creation of the slave-run Congo and the downfall of its oppressive walls. Henry M. Stanley, Roger Casement, Joseph Conrad, E.D. Morel, Henry S Sanford, William Sheppard, and George Washington Williams are the main characters of the book. They are followed throughout, and are always meeting, passing by, corresponding, dining, on retreat, or debating one another. Hochschild did a magnificent job connecting these people to each other and uses their stories as a medium for transporting the facts of King Leopold's terror. These people are such a big part of the book that after Hochschild has said all the information regarding the Congo, he finishes with the non-Congo related endings of all their lives. This really provides a great closing and re-emphasizes Hochschild's opinion to the importance of these people's effect on the Congo.
King Leopold's Ghost brings to life an event that has none of the recognition of the Nazi atrocities but all of the torture, cruelty, murder, and then some. Throughout the book these normally graphic facts are dulled without losing the effect. In contrast Hochschild stays away from the normal dry material of history books by documenting flavorful stories starring prominent figures of the Congo's creation and reform. By weaving the adventures of the stars, he creates a well-researched historical telling of the tale Leopold II did not want you to hear.
Rating:
Summary: Truth is more horrifying than fiction
Review: My usual reading is fiction, but after reading Kingsolver's "Poisonwood Bible", I had to know more about what happened in the Congo. "King Leopold's Ghost" is one of the most important books I've read in the last ten years. There are times when you have to put the book down and digest the horror of what you've just read - and find yourself saying "How could I not know about this? How could our history teachers NOT tell us of atrocities of this magnitude?" For any of you who read "Heart of Darkness" in high school, and had your teachers present it to you as a parable about man's capacity for evil: know that what Conrad wrote in that book was no parable. He was in King Leopold's Congo. And he wrote what he saw. "King Leopold's Ghost" is a book to enlighten and enrage - and to give to a close friend so that you have someone you can discuss it with.
Rating:
Summary: King Leopold's Ghost
Review: I am not usually interested in books dealing with history. I found this very fascinating. It kept my interest. It is devastating to think about what went on in the Congo.
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