In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa,
King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly
unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a
genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized
its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten
million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a
great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes
eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the
twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the
Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold''s Ghost is the
haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man
as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean
villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought
Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young
idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly
found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings
this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara
Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far
richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief
among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went
on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero
of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a
London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington
Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the
Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of
the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph
Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire
King Leopold II. With great power and compassion, King Leopold''s
Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo--too long forgotten--onto
the conscience of the West.
關於作者：
Adam Hochschild was born in New York City in 1942. His first
book, HALF THE WAY HOME: A MEMOIR OF FATHER AND SON, was published
in 1986. It was followed by THE MIRROR AT MIDNIGHT: A SOUTH AFRICAN
JOURNEY 1990 and THE UNQUIET GHOST: RUSSIANS REMEMBER STALIN
1994. FINDING THE TRAPDOOR: ESSAYS, PORTRAITS, TRAVELS won the
1998 PENSpielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay.
Hochschild''s books have been translated into five languages and
have won prizes from the Overseas Press Club of America, the World
Affairs Council, the Eugene V. Debs Foundation, and the Society of
American Travel Writers. Three of his books - including KING
LEOPOLD''S GHOST - have been named Notable Books of the Year by THE
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW and LIBRARY JOURNAL. KING LEOPOLD''S
GHOST was also awarded the 1998 California Book Awards gold medal
for nonfiction. Hochschild has also written for THE NEW YORKER,
HARPER''S MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAGAZINE, MOTHER JONES.
目錄：
Introduction
Prologue: "The Traders Are Kidnapping
Our People"
PART I: WALKING INTO FIRE
"I Shall Not Give Up the Chase"
The Fox Crosses the Stream
The Magnificent Cake
"The Treaties Must Grant Us Everything"
From Florida to Berlin
Under theYacht Club Flag
The First Heretic
Where There Aren''t No Ten Commandments
Meeting Mr. Kurtz
The Wood That Weeps
A Secret Society of Murderers
……
Index
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