
King Leopold's Ghost
A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
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Narrated by:
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Geoffrey Howard
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By:
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Adam Hochschild
About this listen
In the late 1890s, Edmund Dene Morel, a young British shipping company agent, noticed something strange about the cargoes of his company's ships as they arrived from and departed for the Congo, Leopold II's vast new African colony. Incoming ships were crammed with valuable ivory and rubber. Outbound ships carried little more than soldiers and firearms.
Correctly concluding that only slave labor on a vast scale could account for these cargoes, Morel resigned from his company and almost singlehandedly made Leopold's slave-labor regime the premier human rights story in the world. Thousands of people packed hundreds of meetings throughout the United States and Europe to learn about Congo atrocities. Two courageous black Americans - George Washington Williams and William Sheppard - risked much to bring evidence to the outside world. Roger Casement, later hanged by Britain as a traitor, conducted an eye-opening investigation of the Congo River stations.
Sailing into the middle of the story was a young steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming over all was Leopold II, King of the Belgians, sole owner of the only private colony in the world.
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For three crucial years in the 1930s, the Spanish Civil War dominated headlines in America and around the world as volunteers flooded to Spain to help its democratic government fight off a fascist uprising led by Francisco Franco and aided by Hitler and Mussolini. Today we're accustomed to remembering the war through Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Robert Capa's photographs. But Adam Hochschild has discovered some less familiar yet far more compelling characters who reveal the full tragedy and importance of the war.
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Great book very well written and narrated
- By James750 on 05-12-16
By: Adam Hochschild
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The Fortunes of Africa
- A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor
- By: Martin Meredith
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 26 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A sweeping history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.
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VAST & WELL RESEARCHED
- By Odomite on 02-03-21
By: Martin Meredith
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We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
- Stories from Rwanda
- By: Philip Gourevitch
- Narrated by: Philip Gourevitch
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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An unforgettable firsthand account of a people's response to genocide and what it tells us about humanity. This remarkable audiobook chronicles what has happened in Rwanda and neighboring states since 1994, when the Rwandan government called on everyone in the Hutu majority to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority.
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Things you'd never imagine
- By LEE on 12-27-19
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Dictatorland
- The Men Who Stole Africa
- By: Paul Kenyon
- Narrated by: Hamilton McLeod
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the saviour of Africa and waged a relentless campaign of terror against his own people.
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A deep dive into some really sinister history
- By Alan D. on 05-03-24
By: Paul Kenyon
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Destiny Disrupted
- A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
- By: Tamim Ansary
- Narrated by: Tamim Ansary
- Length: 17 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as it looks from a new perspective: with the evolution of the Muslim community at the center. His story moves from the lifetime of Mohammed through a succession of far-flung empires, to the tangle of modern conflicts that culminated in the events of 9/11. He introduces the key people, events, ideas, legends, religious disputes, and turning points of world history, imparting not only what happened but how it is understood from the Muslim perspective.
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You cannot know a person until you know how he sees himself.
- By Chaim J. on 05-02-25
By: Tamim Ansary
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We Wanted Workers
- Unraveling the Immigration Narrative
- By: George J. Borjas
- Narrated by: Jim Seybert
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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We are a nation of immigrants, and we have always been concerned about immigration. As early as 1645, the Massachusetts Bay Colony began to prohibit the entry of "paupers." Today, however, the notion that immigration is universally beneficial has become pervasive. To many modern economists, immigrants are a trove of much-needed workers who can fill predetermined slots along the proverbial assembly line. But this view of immigration's impact is overly simplified, explains George J. Borjas, a Cuban American, Harvard labor economist.
By: George J. Borjas
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How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
- By: Walter Rodney, Angela Y. Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.
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A Superb must read for everyone
- By Joy on 04-16-19
By: Walter Rodney, and others
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American Midnight
- The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
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Disturbing yet Reassuring
- By Sams95 on 11-18-22
By: Adam Hochschild
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The Rape of Nanking
- By: Iris Chang
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.
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Powerful
- By Douglas on 09-05-09
By: Iris Chang
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To End All Wars
- A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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World War I stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britain's leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an editor who, behind bars, published a newspaper for his fellow inmates on toilet paper.
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A story of personalities
- By Tad Davis on 06-09-11
By: Adam Hochschild
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We Carry Their Bones
- The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys
- By: Erin Kimmerle
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Arthur G. Dozier Boys School was a well-guarded secret in Florida for over a century, until reports of cruelty, abuse, and “mysterious” deaths shut the institution down in 2011. Established in 1900, the juvenile reform school accepted children as young as six years of age for crimes as harmless as truancy or trespassing. The boys sent there, many of whom were Black, were subject to brutal abuse, routinely hired out to local farmers by the school’s management as indentured labor, and died either at the school or attempting to escape its brutal conditions.
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What Was Learned -Florida's Dozier School for Boys
- By w.l. on 01-06-23
By: Erin Kimmerle
What listeners say about King Leopold's Ghost
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- L. Lyter
- 12-27-10
A sorry sad story
One of my favorite books, "Poisonwood Bible", piqued my interest in exactly what had happened in the Congo. The reality was worse than I ever had imagined. Mass genocide and other atrocities were so severely inflicted on the people of the Congo that all but the faintest hints of oral traditions were eradicated, along with most of the culture. The author takes some time in exploring the parallels to Joseph Conrad's fictional "Heart of Darkness" and makes a strong case that fictional people and events truly existed. There are heroes in this story, but current events in the Congo make any hope of the restoration of the once vibrant culture truly faint. That one man can destroy so much is an unfortunate lesson the humankind keeps having to repeat. Narration is competant but there are annoying repeated phrases as an earlier reviewer states.
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- Bass guy
- 09-30-13
Buy this one -- you will not regret it
This is such an epic story of greed, pure evil, lies, but also nobility, truth and heroism -- it's hard to believe that the entire thing is true.
On the one hand, there is the pure embodiment of lust, greed and sheer evil genius, King Leopold. If Leopold didn't exist, you'd almost have to invent him just to personify all the bad intentions and misdeeds that created the Congo Free State. But that's what's so amazing about this book -- people like Leopold actual existed and did the things that are described here. I always have trouble imagining a person of pure, unadulterated evil, just sheer badness with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The shorthand view for this person is always Hitler, but I think the cool thing about this book is bringing one to the realization that there are other Hitlers who existed in their own periods of time. Leopold did not have the military might of a Germany at his disposal, but he used every tool at his disposal to build a concentration camp for the people of the Congo -- not for racial cleansing or any high ideals like that, but just to line his own pockets. Wow.
And at the same time, there's the heros of this book -- none of whom have any of the money or power or connections of Leopold, but they use the one thing at their disposal eventually to bring him down. The truth. This part of the book actually made me wish for a time like the early 20th century, when we still had the capacity to be shocked by the sorts of abuses then happening in Leopold's Congo.
Anyway, do not miss this book. It is an awesome story that is all but forgotten in today's history overviews. I would give this book six stars if I could.
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- James Hamilton
- 07-17-18
Read this book, it's sickening but the truth
I loved this book because it is a well written account of a truly horrible event in human history that more people should know about. I am sad that I didn't read it sooner and it makes me ashamed that there is so much of world history that remains hidden, not through censorship, but through apathy.
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- Franco
- 07-07-15
A must read
A period in history which exemplifies the brutality of colonialism. All the duplicity, lies and propaganda used by Leopold can be cut and pasted onto the political and industry leaders of the 21st century. Heart of darkness indeed.
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- Jane
- 01-02-16
Amazing tale of a buried era
An amazingly told story with more characters than one would expect. Excellent introduction into the period
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- Sherri
- 10-02-17
Phenomenal & necessary!
Adam Hochschild has filled a chasm in my historical knowledge and understanding the depth of which was beyond what I realized! His thorough telling of this fascinating, hauntingly tragic reality is mesmerising, forcing you to keep your gaze toward manifestations of racism, greed and colonialism that you'd rather look away from. His writing style, including the occasional touch of wry sarcasm that illuminates further everything from the horrific to the heroic, is brilliant, as is Geoffrey Howard's excellent handling of it. I will, with no uncertainty, be drawing from this work in ongoing efforts to show how current oppression in society has been shaped by such painful history as this!
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- Jennifer
- 08-07-18
Excellent history
This is an excellent account of European colonialism in Africa, specifically in the Congo. Hochschild's account of rubber extraction in the Congo is chilling, but essential to understanding how colonial legacies continue to shape the present.
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- tdg
- 02-06-18
Fascinating, educational, and sad
The phrase I came away with might not be original and certainly not meant to be funny, but it is simply, in Africa no one can hear you scream. Certainly true in the era written about here, but in many ways there is truth in that still today.
The callous inhuman abuses heaped upon the African people by Europeans claiming to be civilizing them is mind boggling. Perhaps most shocking is how recently all of this occurred. Perhaps it took 2 World Wars to teach us empathy.
This history should be taught right alongside the holocaust, because the level of inhumanity is quite comparable, only were aren't talking about neural Nazis. These were perpetrated by what I've always believed were the peaceful Belgians.
The reading was superb, but ruined by poor editing and producing. It's normal for a reader to stop and reread a passage they wish to improve or to pickup the next session by rereading a line or 2 to get the pace set. But it is the editor's job to correctly edit the pieces together, not simply slam the reads together without trimming the redundancy off. This was disorienting and broke the flow of the story. In my opinion, very unprofessional.
The final distraction came at the end. The book has ended, then without any introduction another book begins, the entire introduction is read, about 24 minutes. Then the recording ends. I suppose it was a teaser to sell another book, but it seemed like a mistake on par with the other editing mistakes throughout the recording. I suspect this was simply awful producing and a lame teaser attempt.
In conclusion, great book whose audio production was awfully produced and edited.
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- Mari
- 08-31-16
King Leopolds Ghost
Historical content is beyond reproach. Very well writtened.
The narrator was very eloquent.
I enjoyed the book from the standpoint of learning about the Congo. Was horrified at learning of practice of slavery and other human rights violations.
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- Evan
- 10-01-21
Exposing a hidden corner of history
Excellent writing and a thorough research uncovers the dark European secret. This book should be an obligatory school reading in all Western countries and of course in Congo.
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