Product Description

In the early twentieth century, the worldwide rubber boom led British enterpreneur Lord Leverhulme to the Belgian Congo. Warmly welcomed by the murderous regime of King Leopold II, Leverhulme set up a private kingdom reliant on the horrific Belgian system of forced labor, a program that reduced the population of Congo by half and accounted for more deaths than the Nazi holocaust. In this definitive, meticulously researched history, Jules Marchal exposes the nature of forced labor under Lord Leverhulme's rule and the appalling conditions imposed upon the inhabitants of Congo. With an extensive introduction by Adam Hochschild, "Lord Leverhulme's Ghosts" is an important and urgently needed account of a laboratory of colonial exploitation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #421131 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
"His capacious narrative is both disturbing and fascinating" The New Yorker "A brilliantly told tale, at once horrifying and pleasurable to read" Publishers Weekly "King Leopold's Ghost has all the tension and drama that one would expect in a good novel. At the same time it is... carefully researched and historically accurate." Robert Harms, Times Literary Supplement "A hundred years ago, enlightened people in the western world were outraged by a holocaust in Africa which left millions dead. yet today not one person in a thousand could say what the fuss was all about, unless, of course, they have already read this amazing book." Tariq Ali, Financial Times "King Leopold's Ghost is an exemplary piece of history-writing: urgent, vivid and compelling." Robin Blackburn, Literary Review"

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
Of course the issue is important but the book itself is a real let down. King Leopold's Ghost was well researched but more importantly it was very readable. Lord Leverhulme's Ghost fails to deliver much of interest beyond Hochschild's own introduction, and in fact a warning is contained there where he recognises the author's limitations in keeping a narrative together. This is a translation from apparently a series of 3 books which go into mind-numbing detail about how many palm fruits were collected in various zones of the Congo and the appauling conditions of the forced labour. It contains no maps to guide you through where all this is occuring, no context, no narrative and no real linkage to Lord Leverhulme (I'm more than sure he was aware of the conditions under which his palm oil was procured but the book fails to make that link). Its a man's life's work and it shows, unless you are a student doing a PhD on palm fruit I would keep away.

Fine study of the brutality of colonialism
In this fascinating book, introduced by Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost and Bury the Chains, Jules Marchal shows in detail the atrocities that colonialism brought to the Congo. The Congo was and is cursed with great natural riches - palm oil, rubber, copper, tin, gold, uranium, coltan, timber and diamonds.

Marchal was a Belgian diplomat who served in the Congo. He spent 20 years researching forced labour there, producing four volumes on the 19th century, when King Leopold of Belgium owned the Congo, and three volumes covering 1910 to 1945. This volume examines the role of William Lever, the soap magnate from Port Sunlight in Liverpool who later became Lord Leverhulme. His company, Lever Brothers (now part of Unilever), exploited the Congo's palm oil to make soap.

In the late 19th century, Belgium forced men to get the oil by taking the women hostage. This gross exploitation caused a 50% death rate - ten million Congolese people were killed. King Leopold destroyed much of the evidence, ordering the Congo State archives to be burned.

In the 20th century, the Belgian state still forcibly recruited Congolese workers including women and children as young as five, and used prison to reinforce compulsory labour contracts, renewed automatically. Lever helped to enforce this vile system. Marchal describes `the triangle of State, Catholic missions and companies'. The practice of forced labour continued until independence in 1960. There was similar serfdom in Portugal's Angola, Germany's Cameroons and France's Equatorial Africa.

The exploiters made a show of philanthropy but in reality, as a director of the Compagnie du Kasai said, "You must remember that we are a commercial company not a philanthropic enterprise, and that our shareholders will not ask us if we have taken good care of the natives but what dividends we have earned them."

Naturally, the Congolese people constantly rebelled against their oppressors. In the 1931 revolt, 550 were killed, and Belgian forces tortured to death many prisoners. Only one Belgian soldier was killed, since "we have got the Maxim gun and they have not."

Still today, the Congo's riches attract predators. Since 1997, four million Congolese have been killed in wars for resources, in which a US-British ally, the Rwandan state, has repeatedly attacked the Congo.