King Leopold’s Ghost

Yesterday I finally managed to get hold of a book by Adam Hochschild titled "King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa" ISBN: 0618001905 and must say that it, in my opinion, comes a close second to one other book* in terms of understanding the
continent's precolonial past.

There are stories about the famous Afro American historian George Washington Williams, the Anglo Polish Joseph Conrad (of the Heart of Darkness fame), David Livingstone, and of course the "sometimes Anglo sometimes American" Henry Morton Stanely ["who would break into a
Welsh accent when talking excitedly"]

Supported by research findings of people like Jan Vansina (the Belgian anthropologist), am amazed first by the things I found out in the book and secondly by their implications. Now I understand
a) why Antwerp in particular and Belgium in general hold such power in the diamond industry,
b) much better the tensions between French and Flemish speaking Belgians
c) why DRC musicians feel a sense of entitlement when dealing with Belgium etc

* The other book is "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" (Paperback) by Walter Rodney ISBN 0882580965