Word: goodmanã
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...However, Goodman??s sources betray the murkier moral landscape of the era of high imperialism—the book’s subtitle, “One Man’s Battle for Human Rights in South America’s Heart of Darkness,” makes explicit allusion to Joseph Conrad’s famous novella, especially apt given the fact that Conrad and Casement met in 1889 in the Congo Free State. Casement’s own description of Arana recalls “the unseen presence of victorious corruption” that Marlow senses...
...Devil and Mr. Casement,” British historian Jordan Goodman offers a dispassionate account of Casement’s struggle to expose and put an end to the atrocities wrought by Arana’s company in the Putumayo River Basin of northern Peru. But while Goodman??s chronicle of colonial-era corruption is admirably detailed, Goodman fails to identify the ethical complexities of Casement’s humanitarian project...
...Devil and Mr Casement” succeeds in bringing the principal players of the story to life in brisk, unadorned prose, and with frequent recourse to historical sources. We cannot help but share Goodman??s obvious admiration for Casement, who had established his humanitarian credentials in 1903 with a report exposing the wholesale abuse of the native population—again, in the name of rubber production—of the Congo Free State under King Leopold II of Belgium. “Wherever he went and whomever he met, Roger Casement rarely failed to make a deep...
...Goodman??s account of these events is commendably clear, but he often presents the story and its characters in reductively simple terms. As the book’s title suggests, Goodman frames Casement’s clash with Arana as a battle between good and evil, between defenders and abusers of human rights, between heartfelt humanitarianism and ruthless capitalism. This is, to an extent, justified, given the enormity of the crimes committed against the native population of Putumayo by the Peruvian Amazon Company in the name of Europe’s ever-increasing demand for rubber...
...strength of “The Devil and Mr Casement” lies in the thoroughness of Goodman??s research and his assiduous fidelity to the historical record. But the tension of Goodman??s narrative ultimately slackens under the weight of his facts, which are deployed too densely, and without enough reflection, to make “The Devil and Mr. Casement” as satisfying and challenging as it could—and should—have been...