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King Leopold's Ghost - A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
by Adam Hochschild
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 0333661265
- ISBN 13
- 9780333661260
- Seller
-
Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: Macmillan, 1999 Book. Very Good. Black Cloth Boards. First GB Edition. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. Brilliant account of a shipping company official's virtually single-handed campaign to expose a massive slave labour regime created by the Belgian king, Leopold II. 366pp with index, illustrated with 16 pages of black and white reproductions and a map. Gilt lettering to spine. Small stain to top board and minor marking to top edges, otherwise very good copy with no inscriptions. Unclipped DJ has minimal edge and surface wear, otherwise very good..
Synopsis
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.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Washburn Books
(GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 015796
- Title
- King Leopold's Ghost - A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
- Author
- Adam Hochschild
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Edition
- First GB Edition
- ISBN 10
- 0333661265
- ISBN 13
- 9780333661260
- Publisher
- Macmillan
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1999
- Size
- 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾
Terms of Sale
Washburn Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Washburn Books
Biblio member since 2010
Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire
About Washburn Books
Washburn Books is a small family business, based in Yorkshire. We offer a wide variety of hard-to-find and out-of-print books in our virtual store, as well as an offline search service. We take pride in our fast delivery of well packaged books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
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