European Conquest; Colonization of Africa based on the book, Adam Hochscild, King Leopold's Ghost

Literary / Historical Information

King Leopold's Ghost is meant to be part of a long history of texts about the colonization of Africa. Hochschild refers to those texts in the course of the book, most notably the wildly popular works of Henry Morton Stanley and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

In a very real sense, Hochschild's book is not only a response and continuation of those works about the European colonization of Africa, but also a re-imagining of what that colonization meant and the consequences it had on all involved. King Leopold's Ghost also follows a tradition of popular history narratives - that is, scholarly works of history that are intended for an audience beyond academics(Lloyd, 142-155). In recent decades, other notable writers in this field include Barbara Tuchman (A Distant Mirror), David McCullough (John Adams), Stephen Ambrose (Band of Brothers), and Joseph Ellis (Founding Brothers).

Overall analyses

Character analysis

As a work of popular history, King Leopold's Ghost relies on dramatic characterization to engage the general reader's attention: we are encouraged to understand the key characters, to see things from their unique perspectives, then to root for or against them. However, the subject matter is ideologically broad - the conquest of Africa by the Europeans and the consequences of seeing whole peoples as "other" when colonizing them - and many specific events contribute to the circumstances at the heart of the book.

There is a good deal of basic historical exposition necessary to properly convey the…… Leopold II - Leopold II thus looms large as the villain of this book, the figure most responsible for the murder of millions of humans in the quest for profit. He is portrayed throughout as someone with a single goal - to create a personal empire - and pursues it in a near-monomaniacal fashion(Donald, 162). In keeping with this characterization, he is almost always made responsible - directly by his decrees or…… Henry Morton Stanley - Henry Morton Stanley is given a rather complex psychological profile from his very first appearance in the book: he is born a bastard and deals with abandonment by both parents through a fear of intimacy and an unhealthy desire for approval.

As widely celebrated as he is in the public eye, he nevertheless is a jumble of neuroses who takes his anger out on underlings and aggrandizes his considerable achievements because whatever he does is still not enough to earn him the……. Additional characters are analyzed in the complete study guide.

The societies of Africa at this time were very diverse, so the responses to European conquest ranged from "accommodation to armed resistance;" a "unified political response" was not possible. (Brummett 673), Excellent use of the text as support here. By the time of World War I, "most Africans found themselves living within colonies with new political boundaries arbitrarily drawn by the Europeans, without regard for the existing ethnic identities of peoples." (Brummett 674) The arbitrary boundaries created ...