Power is tempting, and no power is greater than the ability to take someone’ life.

In the late nineteenth century, when the great powers in Europe were tearing Africa apart and seizing ownership for themselves, King Leopold of Belgium took hold of the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River.

In his barbarous colonization of this area, Leopold stole its rubber and ivory, pummelled its people and set up a ruthless regime that would reduce the population by half. While he did all this, he carefully constructed an image of himself as a deeply feeling humanitarian.

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, King Leopold’s Ghost is the true and haunting account of Leopold’s brutal regime and its lasting effect. It is also the inspiring story of a handful of brave Africans, Americans and Europeans, black and white, who found themselves in the midst of a holocaust. Instead of turning away, they chose to stand up. Hochschild brings life to this largely untold scandal and, crucially, casts blame on those responsible for this atrocity.

‘All the tension and drama that one would expect in a good novel’

Robert Harris

‘Amazing’

Financial Times -