MFN No |
|
Search: Amazon.com Google Books
Author Links: LibraryThing Wikipedia
Search for Ebooks: Project Gutenberg Open Library |
Book Title |
|
Author |
; |
|
View Information About the Author
/
Hide
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 PEN/Spielvogel-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 (which he co-founded), THE NATION, and many other magazines and newspapers. A former commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," he teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1997-98 he was a Fulbright Lecturer in India. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Arlie, the sociologist and author. They have two sons. - Source: Powell's Books |
Subject |
|
Descriptors |
; |
Call No |
|
Description |
Documents the plundering of the territory. - Source: Library Thing View Detailed Summary
/
Hide
|
|
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. - Source: Powell's Books
|
Volume |
|
Imprint |
|
ISBN |
|
Edition |
|
Language |
|
Total Copies |
|
Issued |
|
Available |
|
|