King Leopold's Ghost review

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. 366 pages, map, photographs, bibliography, index.

Each generation re-references history, eliciting lessons relevant to its own time. In a current world both mesmerized and horrified by ethnic cleansing, genocide, forced organ donation, female genital mutilation, exploitation of child labor, and abuse of the death penalty, Hochschild reminds us of the human rights violations of an earlier era. He recounts the events that unfolded in the Belgium Congo in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Africa.

Although a journalist, Hochschild demonstrates an effective use of the historian's art, weaving together an engaging and gripping story. This book has been well received in both literary circles and scholarly circles.

In spite of efforts by Leopold to keep a positive spin on the situation through a carefully managed campaign of press manipulation, rebuttal, and even bribes to journalists, his system of terror was gradually exposed by a succession of human rights activists.

Among them was the historian George Washington Williams. He was followed by the young crusading journalist E.D. Morel and the British consular official, Roger Casement. Between 1903-13 Morel and Casement led one of the most important human rights campaigns fought in the twentieth century, and one that laid the cornerstone for future initiatives such as Amnesty International. Through Morel's tireless lobbying and Casement's intrepid investigation Leopold's horror was revealed and the lie that lay at the heart of the white man's theories of civilisation was exposed in all its wrongheaded racial prejudice.

While Hochschild has done much valuable research, his extensive notes and bibliography reveal that there are key primary sources that he has overlooked. He ignores the Casement-Morel correspondence held at the LSE and he has neglected the vast correspondence of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigine Protection Society papers held at Rhodes House in Oxford.

It is also clear that Hochschild is not up-to-date with the current debate on the authenticity of the so-called 'Black Diaries' which he uses liberally as a source for his interpretation of Casement's movements through the Congo in 1903. Although these documents have long been attributed to Casement, many consider it more likely that they were forged by British Intelligence to undermine Casement's human rights work. Finally there is little made here of the connection between wild rubber and the motor car industry - and the wider genocide ...