KING LEOPOLD’S GHOST by Adam Hochschild (Mariner Books, 1999)
Even as the slave trade began in the 15th century, the interior of The Congo remained largely unexplored until the mid-19th century when Leopold II, imperialist and greedy King of Belgium, set his sights on exploiting the region’s rich natural resources – pillaging the land and its people to extract ivory and rubber – and tapping its abundance of free slave labor for his own personal profit at the expense of at least 10 million Congolese lives. Dense but fascinating in scope, gruesome detail and arching explanation and peppered with heroes of moral cause, this is a triumph in historical narrative (8.5/10).
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