Talk:King Leopold's Ghost

POV Issue, Contrast England and Belgium in late 19th century Africa

The bolded portion of the selection below (which I wrote) was removed by an anonymous, but prolific contributor with a strong interest in history.

• Sir Roger Casement, British diplomat (and later Irish martyr), who put the force of the British government, itself a somewhat less bloody oppressor, behind the international protest against the Belgians.

Granted, the words may be a bit POV, but this is an article about a book and one of the points raised in the book is that the English attack on Belgian oppression in the Congo had the side effect of taking some of the heat off England for her own colonial activities. I would like to discuss this point further, but I do believe some such phrase belongs in the article, as accurately representing the author's views. Ortolan88 15:47, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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I just restored British colonialsm, putting the words clearly in the author's mouth. Some other anonymous contributor also just removed details reported by Hochschild about Congo practices. I repeat, the article is about the book, so it should say what the book says. I added the word "impassioned" to the description of the book, hoping that would help the deleters understand this point. That watchful guy, Ortolan88 01:17, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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What does this site say? I tacked on a brief note, because it appears to be relevant, but I have no French.

• CoBelCo.org French language site on Belgian Congo mentions Hochschild.
  

Is there an English language site?Ortolan88 03:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I made some adjustements and addictions. I took off phrases as "H. tells the story well" because our aim is not to make a review of the book (although I like it very much too). I ampliated the summary and I put two paragraph about the sources used by H. and the polemics that followed the book's publication, that seem to me interesting. Ciao! juliet.p

"Although with this act Congo has become an "ordinary colony", the oppression of the Belgian Congo continued into modern times. For example, Hochschild reports that 80 per cent of the uranium in the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was mined in the Congo"

What does the origin of the uranium have to do with the alleged continued oppression of the Belgian Congo?

Minor Edits

I've fixed a few of the links to point them directly to the articles in question as opposed to going through a redirect or to a disambiguation page. Mhacdebhandia 08:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Genocide

I have removed the mention of genocide from the lead. Adam Hochschild states in In the Heart of Darkness, New York Review of Books, 26 October 2005 that "The exhibit deals with this question in a wall panel misleadingly headed 'Genocide in the Congo?' This is a red herring, for no reputable historian of the Congo has made charges of genocide; a forced labor system, although it may be equally deadly, is different." It is clear that he is not claiming that his book King_Leopold's_Ghost is about a genocide. --PBS (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The article says "And Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem, a Congolese scholar whose Histoire générale du Congo was published the same year as King Leopold's Ghost, estimated the death toll in the Léopold era and its immediate aftermath at roughly 13 million, a higher figure than the various scholarly estimates Hochschild cites." Yet the Congo Free State article quotes this author at 10 million. So three million less deaths. Why this discrepancy? --Fynire (talk) 18:15, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

"Discrepancy"? ALL figures are wild guesses. Since we don't have any population records for any point in the past in Congo, until the 1960's, you can basically come up with whichever figure you like. If you reckon that Congo had 30 million inhabitants prior to the CFS, and you accept that there were 8 million after that, and then you attribute all "excess death" to king Leopold's bussiness, then he is one of the most prominent mass-murderers of all time... Unless you apply the same rule to, say, the Germanic Empire of 15th Century Europe during the plague epidemics. Then, you could say that was far worse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.213.205.18 (talk) 12:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

That's indeed a problem with such figures. No scientific surveys, not stats, but some people think they can spit out figures. These high killing figures are also counterlogical. If exploitation was the motive, then the exploiters don't have a motive to kill those that they exploit; at least not at a large scale. The extraction of rubber was of course a coercive measure, but so is any taxation. Another problem is, that some people may have had an axe to grind with Leopold, who was a rather unpopular monarch. --41.151.82.78 (talk) 08:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

You are correct that the precise number will never be known, since Leopold consigned the relevant records to the furnace at Laeken. But not all estimates are wild guesses. As Hochschild discusses in detail (and as reported in the article), several approaches toward estimating the mortality (starting with the early Belgian government investigation and continuing through recent anthropological studies) have probed the number through various angles, and the careful ones agree: roughly half the population died during Leopold's regime. Given the census taken when the government took control (well before the 1960s), this implies an imprecise but fairly solid round number of 10 million. That's based on solid evidence, and those who would like to ignore it have yet to produce solid evidence to the contrary. Comparing the rubber collection to taxation is disingenuous: tax collectors are not typically given blanket license to kill. While it would indeed seem counter-productive to kill off your workers, it is well documented that the Congo authorities had instructions to do just that if they met resistance -- or even short-fall. -- Elphion (talk) 15:26, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Bias in the Article?

Are we now working for the marketing department of Hochschild inc? According to the article, the book has not a single thing wrong with it and all attacks on it by figures like Barbara Emerson (who is a more respected scolar in the area that Hochschild) are totally unjustified. Whilst I'm not denying that it raises some important issues, the book is fundamentally "pop-history" (something it does very well) and this should be stressed more clearly. Otherwise, it seems fine to me.Brigade Piron (talk) 09:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your objection. The article already calls it a "popular history"; its expository rather than research character is noted; Emerson's objection is cited; but the general historicity and accuracy are well attested, even by other Belgian scholars. -- Elphion (talk) 13:38, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

My objections stems from the tone which is used in the section "Reception" to describe the reactions to his work. Though I understand that the ideas are (of course) further explored in Congo Free State article, the phrasing of the criticism such as:

• "His choice was the basis of his success, but some Belgian critics deplored his comparison of Leopold with Hitler and Stalin"
• "Hochschild does not use the word genocide, but describes how the mass deaths happened as a result of the forced labor system instituted at Leopold's direction."

Is very much using the other arguments as wooden horses, using a basic defence and really ignoring the wider issues. The counter arguments are not explained in the slightest and Hochschild comes out of the piece as some sort of "prophet," bringing the subject to people's notice from (and I quote) "books and documents not easy to find." Hochschild is hardly the first to write a pop-history book on this subject - The King Incorporated, for example, by Neal Ascherson was published in 1963 and is re-printed in new editions to this day. There are countless others for those who speak French or Dutch. Lastly:

• "Although few Africa scholars outside of Belgium seriously question that large numbers died in Leopold’s Congo, the subject remains a touchy one in Belgium itself."

I defy anyone to find a Belgian (or indeed, any) historian of the last 50 years at least who has denied that large numbers died in the Congo Free State. In effect, it is not the interpretation given by Hochschild that I disagree with, merely the presentation of him in the article as a 'ground-breaking author' which he isn't.Brigade Piron (talk) 17:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Your first bullet (about "His choice was the basis of his success,") is well taken, though I think the contributor must not speak English as a first language. The point seems to be simply that the book was successful in reaching a large audience precisely because of how Hochschild chose to write it (which is certainly true), but juxtaposing the awkward phrasing with the Belgian objections makes it sound like the Belgians lost. I've revised that paragraph.

If you feel the counter arguments are not adequately characterized, by all means weigh in. But your point that this article should not be the primary discussion is also well taken.

I disagree completely that the article characterizes Hochschild's book as ground-breaking. It states several times that it was not. But there is no question that it (and the documentary it inspired) reached a much larger audience than previous books, including Ascherson's. And although you are correct that not all of the material it discusses is inacessible, much of it is not readily available to the non-scholarly public, particularly in English. Marchal's work in particular, was almost completely unknown, and is still hard to find. The Belgian author that people are familiar with is Stengers, of course; and it is precisely the POV that Stengers represents that has buried the issue. Public awareness (even in Belgium) of the historical debacle in the Congo was much higher in the 20's and 30's than it is now. It is ever so: things we don't like to think about tend to fall off the table. We need people like Hochschild to remind us now and again -- and Hochschild did a particularly effective job of it.

-- Elphion (talk) 20:02, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I have re-written the Reception section to be slightly less POV heavy. I hate these article with the sort of "many people argue that..." phrases, but in this case they cannot be cut out completely without a total re-write.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say as regards availabilty of sources. It is not surprising that many texts (particularly in foreign languages) should be scarce and it is the job of an historian to collate less available/readable information. Every historical period has this problem, and I think it is less so in the case of the Congo as opposed to, say, French colonialism. Anyone interested could have read Packenham's Scramble for Africa for far better information. Brigade Piron (talk) 20:07, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Removed "citation needed"

Removed the request for a citation in the intro, as there already was a good one inline.--Quisqualis (talk) 05:44, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

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