Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Book Review: King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild from our blog creator

I've just finished reading a great book called 'King Leopold's Ghost' by Adam Hochschild. It's all about the Congo in the late 1800s and early 1900s and the terrible happenings between the natives and the colonialists. If you are anything like me and enjoy having a good old rant about whether colonialism is good or bad, this is a wonderful read for you. Or, if you are just simply interested in men with strange facial hair I suppose this will be tantalizing for you as well.
While reading this book I came across a wonderful quote (above) and I had to share it. It is taken from a piece of work that Mark Twain wrote during this time called King Leopold's Soliloquy, an imaginary monologue by Leopold II of Belgium. After all the terrible things dug up by reformers trying to stop the vicious cycle of colonialism and slave labour that King Leopold and his associates had buried so well comes the inevitable and gruesome truth that a photograph always reveals, as well as conquering the test of time.

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