Colleen Browne's Reviews > King Leopold's Ghost

An excellent book about a subject that I must admit, I knew almost nothing about. The exploitation of the people and resources of the Congo by King Leopold at the end of the 19th Century is as horrific as it is tragic. Forced labor characterized by the severing of hands and heads, the use of whips to inflict punishments that were sometimes fatal, the taking of hostages of the wives and children of men forced to harvest rubber; the cavalier racism that allowed all of this with hardly a thought not only from the people inflicting it but from many of the visitors and missionaries to the country. Although exact numbers are impossible to determine, the Congo went from a population of roughly 20 million people before the arrival of Leopold to roughly 10 million at his death, roughly ten years later.

Then there are the heroes of the saga, Morel, the fearless journalist who never wavered from his commitment to exposing and reforming Congo, even Roger Casement, who would a short time later be executed by the British for his work to free Ireland from the chains of English imperialism. I highly recommend this book which reads like a novel.