Seeking political prominence and economic gain, Leopold had tried to purchase land in Latin America and Asia from several European powers. Writing a century later, Adam Hochschild revisits Conrad's Congo to tell the tale of Belgian king Leopold II's colonial savagery and his creation of a personal colony in the heart of Africa.ĭuring the last two decades of the 19th century, under the pretense of a humanitarian mission to save Africans from slavery and alcohol, Leopold seized an immense swath of land (an area seventy-six times the size of Belgium) around the Congo River. He eloquently pointed out that European colonialists of the late 19th century were no more 'civilized' than the 'savages' they sought to rule in sub-Saharan Africa at the turn of the last century. Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him, - all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.'Ĭonrad, who wrote the Heart of Darkness after a chilling trip up the Congo River in 1890, recognized how yesterday's savages were tomorrow's paragons of civilization. coming out here in the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader, even, to mend his fortunes. think of a decent young citizen in a toga. 'I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago. In a passage at the beginning of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Marlow looks out from his ship near the sea-reach of the Thames and says: Reviewed by Eric Garcetti Co-Chair Young Advocates, California Committee South HRW: Community: Review of King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild BOOK REVIEWS

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild