King Leopold's Ghost by Adam HochschildHoughton Mifflin, 1999
(Goodreads, Amazon)
I happened upon this at the library while looking for more recent African history, but it provided good background and, more importantly, was a fascinating and horrifying story in its own right. I only knew the barest outlines of this section of the Congo's history, and Hochschild did a good job of weaving a lot of important information into a compelling narrative. And given the timing, reading this this week, I couldn't help but be struck by the way that Leopold's and others' justifications for colonialism, forced labor, and mass murder are being echoed almost verbatim by Cliven Bundy.
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