King Leopold's Ghost

            Leopold II ascended to the throne of Belgium in 1865 with imperial aspirations. He hoped to transform the small European nation into a colonial power, rivaling that of England or France. While Belgium never reached the heights of its European rivals, Leopold managed to carve out a private empire for himself. By manipulating the media and his fellow world leaders, Leopold claimed and seized (through a private corporation that he controlled) the Congo in 1885. He ruled the ironically named Congo Free State for over twenty years. Political and humanitarian pressure finally forced him to sell the colony to Belgium in 1908. Throughout his reign, Leopold stripped the Congo bare. The ivory and rubber trades enriched him beyond imagination. According to Adam Hochschild’s marvelous book KingLeopold’s Ghost, he did so at the cost of nearly ten million lives. Hochschild’s book also represents a remarkable achievement in historical publishing, fusing commercial appeal and an unpleasant and unknown subject to the American public.

Leopold and one of his victims. 

            The publishing market for popular history in the United States encompasses a narrow range of subjects. They generally fall into familiar categories that appeal to the audience of middle and upper class white men who buy the bulk of popular histories. Military histories of World War 2 and the Civil War, voluminous biographies of George Washington, John Adams, Jefferson and the other founders, and Abraham Lincoln dominate the shelves of major bookstores. The view of American history that emerges from these histories is largely one of triumph and progress. Lincoln frees the slaves, the Greatest Generation overcomes Nazi aggression, or the Founding Fathers overthrow the tyranny of Great Britain. These narratives are embedded into our national consciousness and every semester history professors and educators across the country battle them in the classroom. The story of America, they argue, is not some triumphant march towards freedom. Rather it is an ugly and dirty history marked by conflict, oppression, and unspeakable cruelty. They try to include stories of slaves, women, Native Americans, immigrants, the poor, and other marginalized peoples. In the popular imagination these subjects rarely receive the attention warranted to the great white men of history.

The American literary audience is much more interested in these guys...

            The history of Africa garners little attention in the American popular consciousness and modern news agencies take only a fleeting notice of Africa’s problems. Even when they do, an American-centric view dominates. Most of the popular focus on the Ebola outbreak has fixated on the American doctor who caught the virus and not its African victims. By focusing on Leopold II and his adversaries, Hochschild, a journalist and graduate instructor at UC-Berkeley, builds his story around their lives, giving the book a clear chronological narrative. His story is of Leopold’s greed and its catastrophic consequences. Hochschild pulls no punches in describing Leopold’s selfishness, indifference to the suffering of Africans, and his adroit manipulation of late 19^th and early 20^th century media. In a century marked by some of history’s greatest monsters, Leopold deserves special mention. The destruction he caused is incalculable, but, as Hochschild reminds us, sadly represents just one horrible chapter in the encyclopedia of European conquest and colonization.

...rather than these people. 

             In the late 19^th century, European powers saw Africa as rife with potential. In explaining Leopold’s desire for colonies, Hochschild successfully captures how Europeans viewed Africa.  It had vast territories and natural resources that could fuel economic growth. Best of all, in European eyes, it was a blank slate, empty of civilization and people. Indigenous Africans were lazy and in need reformation. A modern work ethic combined with the civilizing efforts of missionaries could transform Africa and its people into reflection of liberal European ideals. Turning Africans into pliant workers, however, required the liberal use of the whip. The civilizing mission, then, became one of enslavement. Hochschild further highlights how Leopold continued European traditions of forced labor in the Congo. England had ended slavery in its American colonies in 1838 and other European powers soon followed. Brazil, the last holdout, ended slavery in 1888. Yet systems of forced labor did not end there. Rather they took on new forms in Africa, Asia, and the Americas (where they still continue today). In Africa, corporations and colonial governments created new means of coercion in the form of production quotas that enslaved indigenous Africans. Leopold’s empire in the Congo gained notoriety for its rubber quotas that devastated the landscape and uprooted entire villages. The book is sobering reminder of the cost of “progress.”

Hochschild’s book succeeds because of its ability to appeal to and challenge a commercial audience with a subject that rarely receives popular attention.