Word: hochschild
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Morel is the true hero of this story, and he dedicated nearly a decade of his life exclusively to this cause. He estimated that he wrote over 20,000 letters concerning the Congo as of 1908, and it is precisely this sense of passion which Hochschild illustrates so beautifully in his portrayal of Morel. As the story progresses into the second section of the book, "A King at Bay," it becomes as much a story of hope, perseverance and triumph as a story of death and destruction...
...efforts of Morel and others eventually pressured Leopold into giving up what had previously been solely his colony, but not before the King had personally made what would amount to a profit of $1.1 billion in today's currency. Yet, Hochschild does not provide a fairy tale ending of prosperity in the Congo. Instead, he stays true to his historical roots by presenting an accurate, if not uplifting, portrait of life in the Congo post...
Leopold and Stanley were certainly not the only villains in this story; even the infamous Mr. Kurtz of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness makes an appearance. Specifically, Hochschild has found no less than three men who could feasibly have served as models for the character of Kurtz. One of these men, Leon Rom, was station chief at Stanley Falls, on which Conrad's "Inner Station" may be based, and kept 21 heads as a decoration around his flower bed. But Hochschild makes an important distinction--he asserts that while Conrad's tale may have many levels of literary significance...
...fascinating aspect of Hochschild's story involves the sheer modernity of the crisis. Morel's constant coverage of the Congo in pamphlets, newspapers, mass meetings, novels and even church hymns amounted to a public relations campaign on an immense scale. And although Morel was successful, Leopold was his own best popularizer. He ordered that a copy of his propagandist pamphlet, The Truth about the Congo, be placed next to the Bible in the sleeping compartment of every luxury train in Europe...
...book's conclusion is particularly chilling as Hochschild explores how the mass murder of 10 million people came to be ignored for nearly a century. Historically this small portion of the book is just as fascinating as the unraveling of the killings and the movement itself and is written with just as much eloquence. Hochschild offers a multi-leveled rationale for this forgetting, but concludes that perhaps the chief cause lies in the beginnings of the First World War and the Allies' politically advantageous characterization of "Poor Little Belgium...