Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of “King Leopold's Ghost” by Adam Hochschild. For what was slavery in the American South, after all, but a system for transforming the labor of black bodies, via cotton plantations, into cloth?” But otherwise they saw the continent as faceless, blank, empty, a place on the map waiting to be explored”. This, for the conquerors, served a further purpose. The sea sprites hand him up their cloth, and the captain "then throws in, as payment, a few dead bodies of black people he has bought from those bad native traders who have bewitched their people and sold them to the white men." The Traders Are Kidnappingour People, Page 10. Error rating book. ― Belsebuub, quote from Gazing into the Eternal: Reflections upon a Deeper Purpose to Living, “Přání: Touha něco vlastnit nebo dokázat. Quotes Topics for Discussion. We shall make war. . . . King Leopold's Ghost Summary and Study Guide. In private, he expressed his deepest prejudice to the Africans – which in his view were nothing but primates and sources of labor. The myth was not so far from reality. King Leopold’s Ghost gives an account of a cruel, heartless and cunning king who raided Congo and took … ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “The exclusive focus of the reform movement on Leopold’s Congo seems even more illogical if you reckon mass murder by the percentage of the population killed. Forced labor, hostages, slave chains, starving porters, burned villages, paramilitary company “sentries,” and the chicotte were the order of the day. The King Leopold’s Ghost Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you. Its discovery then had a strong influence on Braque, Matisse, and Picasso -- who subsequently kept African art objects in his studio until his death. It would be two decades before Europeans really noticed this art. King Leopold’s Ghost: Important quotes with page. Leopold's Congo is but one of those silences of history.”. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “Sorry, but they’re burning the State archives.” The furnaces burned for eight days, turning most of the Congo state records to ash and smoke in the sky over Brussels. But after there were no visible opponents left, seven million more people were executed, and many millions more died in the far-flung camps of the gulag. One of the most impressive was Chief Lontulu of Bolima, who had been flogged with the chicotte, held hostage, and sent to work in chains. The sea sprites hand him up their cloth, and the captain "then throws in, as payment, a few dead bodies of black people he has bought from those bad native traders who have bewitched their people and sold them to the white men." Please Sign Up to get full document. King Leopold's Ghost Quotes by Adam Hochschild About King Leopold's Ghost King Leopold's Ghost Summary Character List Glossary Themes Quotes Analysis Symbols, Allegory and Motifs Metaphors and Similes Irony Imagery Literary Elements Essay Questions Adam Hochschild. more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become We cannot endure that our women and children are taken away And dealt with by the white savages. For what was slavery in the American South, after all, but a system for transforming the labor of black bodies, via cotton plantations, into cloth?”, “Monsters exist,” wrote Primo Levi of his experience at Auschwitz. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “With every step he took in Africa, Stanley planned how to tell the story once he got home. The King Leopold's Ghost Study Guide contains a comprehensive summary and analysis of King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “Today we are less likely to speak of humanitarianism, with its overtones of paternalistic generosity, and more likely to speak of human rights. The whole doc is available only for registered users OPEN DOC. offer you some of the highlights. King Leopold's Ghost Summary & Study Guide Description. On the whole continent, perhaps no nation has had a harder time than the Congo in emerging from the shadow of its past.” ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “Stanley’s painful inhibitions are a reminder that the adventurers who carried out the European seizure of Africa were often not the bold, bluff, hardy men of legend, but restless, unhappy, driven men, in flight from something in their past or in themselves.” King Leopold’s Ghost Introduction + Context. "Most striking about the traditional societies of the Congo was their remarkable artwork: baskets, mats, pottery, copper and ironwork, and, above all, woodcarving. King Leopold’s Ghost tells of how the Congo was exploited heavily by King Leopold II and recounts the atrocities that the Belgians committed between 1885 and 1908, making King Leopold II, imperialism, and racism the antagonists of the novel. A documentary about the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium. the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” On the whole continent, perhaps no nation has had a harder time than the Congo in emerging from the shadow of its past.”, “And so the bulk of chicotte blows were inflicted by Africans on the bodies of other Africans. Leopold’s Congo is but one of those silences of history.”, “To get at parts of the vine high off the ground, men frantic to get every possible drop of rubber would sometimes tear down the whole vine, slice it into sections, and squeeze the rubber out. “Those who are conquered," wrote the philosopher Ibn Khaldun in the fourteenth century, "always want to imitate the conqueror in his main characteristics—in his clothing, his crafts, and in all his distinctive traits and customs.”, “As the years passed, new myths arose to explain the mysterious objects the strangers brought from the land of the dead. A nineteenth-century missionary recorded, for example, an African explanation of what happened when captains descended into the holds of their ships to fetch trading goods like cloth. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “Most striking about the traditional societies of the Congo was their remarkable artwork: baskets, mats, pottery, copper and ironwork, and above all, woodcarving. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost “Around the time the Germans were slaughtering Hereros, the world also was largely ignoring America’s brutal counterguerrilla war in the Philippines, in which U.S. troops tortured prisoners, burned villages, killed some 20,000 rebels, and saw an estimated 200,000 more Filipinos die of war-related hunger or disease.” Twig by twig, he named the dead. "But they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. It created a class of foremen from among the conquered, like the kapos in the Nazi concentration camps and the predurki, or trusties, in the Soviet gulag. Quotes By Adam Hochschild. In” Just as terrorizing people is part of conquest, so is forcing someone else to administer the terror”, “When Leopold wrote that the precise frontiers of the new state or states would be defined later, [German Chancellor] Bismarck said to an aide, "His Majesty displays the pretensions and naive selfishness of an Italian who considers that his charm and good looks will enable him to get away with anything.”, “A parade of witnesses offered horrifying testimony. He added, "I'm after a snake and please God I'll scotch it.” You can help us out by revising, improving and updating this section. “But they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. By these standards, the toll was even worse among the Hereros in German South West Africa, today’s Namibia. who share an affinity for books. In these central African sculptures some body parts are exaggerated, some shrunken; eyes project, cheeks sink, mouths disappear, torsos become elongated; eye sockets expand to cover almost the entire face; the human face and figure are broken apart and formed again in new ways and proportions that had previously lain beyond sight of traditional European realism.The art sprang from cultures that had, among other things, a looser sense than Islam or Christianity of the boundaries between our world and the next, as well as those between the world of humans and the world of beasts. Instead, righteous denunciations poured down on a distant, weak, and safely nonwhite target: the so-called Arab slave-traders raiding Africa from the east. Cubism was new only for Europeans, for it was partly inspired by specific pieces of African art, some of them from the Pende and Songye peoples, who live in the basin of the Kasai River, one of the Congo's major tributaries.It was easy to see the distinctive brilliance that so entranced Picasso and his colleagues at their first encounter with this art at an exhibit in Paris in 1907. Access Full Document. (29.3K votes), “Most striking about the traditional societies of the Congo was their remarkable artwork: baskets, mats, pottery, copper and ironwork, and, above all, woodcarving. Read 2,828 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Leopold used his personal control to strip the … Among its supporters, it kept alive a tradition, a way of seeing the world, a human capacity for outrage at pain inflicted on another human being, no matter whether that pain is inflicted on someone of another color, in another country, at another end of the earth.”, “Except for Lefranc, few Europeans working for the regime left records of their shock at the sight of officially sanctioned terror. And yet the world we live in—its divisions and conflicts, its widening gap between rich and poor, its seemingly inexplicable outbursts of violence—is shaped far less by what we celebrate and mythologize than by the painful events we try to forget. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “In France’s equatorial African territories, where the region’s history is best documented, the amount of rubber-bearing land was far less than what Leopold controlled, but the rape was just as brutal. The basic freedoms in life are not seen as gifts to be doled out by benevolent well-wishers, but as Casement said at his trial, as those rights to which all human beings are entitled from birth. The myth was not so far from reality. ― Joelle Charbonneau, quote from Need, “I invoked you, bribing Fate to produce you.Were you conjuring me? ISBN-10: 0-395-75924-2 ISBN-10: 0-618-00190-5 (pbk.) A King At Bay Quotes 9 This would mean, according to the estimates, that during the Leopold period and its immediate aftermath the population of the territory dropped by approximately ten million people. 2 pages at 400 words per page) View a FREE sample. Includes bibliographical references and index. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “From the colonial era, the major legacy Europe left to Africa was not democracy as it is practiced today in countries like England, France, and Belgium; it was authoritarian rule and plunder. the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”, “Casement quoted an African proverb: "A man doesn't go among thorns unless a snake's after him—or he's after a snake." Něco chtít.Potřeba: Něco, co je důležité, protože je to zásadní, něco nezbytného bez čeho nemůžete žít.CO POTŘEBUJETE?” There is something very modern about that, too, as there is about the bomber pilot in the stratosphere, above the clouds, who never hears screams or sees shattered homes or torn flesh.” One witness saw Africans who had to dig up roots in order to find enough rubber to meet their quotas.”, “Forgetting one’s participation in mass murder is not something passive; it is an active deed. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “Casement quoted an African proverb: "A man doesn't go among thorns unless a snake's after him—or he's after a snake." It would be two decades before Europeans really noticed this art. Below you will find the important quotes in King Leopold’s Ghost related to the theme of Racism and Human Rights. Welcome back. Twig by twig, he named the dead. He added, "I'm after a snake and please God I'll scotch it.”, “Today we are less likely to speak of humanitarianism, with its overtones of paternalistic generosity, and more likely to speak of human rights. The white men who passed through the territory as military officers, steamboat captains, or state or concession company officials generally accepted the use of the chicotte as unthinkingly as hundreds of thousands of other men in uniform would accept their assignments, a half-century later, to staff the Nazi and Soviet concentration camps. He never set foot in the Congo. Update this section! ― Stuart Gibbs, quote from Spy Ski School, “As a child, I prayed she’d live, that she’d make it through the night. He” The true story of how one man's greed led to one of the most horrific examples of European Colonialism. Word”, “Stanley’s painful inhibitions are a reminder that the adventurers who carried out the European seizure of Africa were often not the bold, bluff, hardy men of legend, but restless, unhappy, driven men, in flight from something in their past or in themselves.”, “At the time of the Congo controversy a hundred years ago, the idea of full human rights, political, social, and economic, was a profound threat to the established order of most countries on earth. Founded in 2018, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “One British missionary was asked repeatedly by Africans, "Has the Savior you tell us of any power to save us from the rubber trouble?” Pages: 7 Words: 1685 Views: 556. King Leopold’s Ghost is a history book authored by Adam Hochschild where he explores how King Leopold II of Belgium exploited Congo Free State in 1885-1908. Like his European counterparts, he”, “We are tired of living under this tyranny. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “Monsters exist,” wrote Primo Levi of his experience at Auschwitz. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “The standard of emancipation is now unfurled . Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. It created a class of foremen from among the conquered, like the kapos in the Nazi concentration camps and the predurki, or trusties, in the Soviet gulag. [They are] materialistic first and humanitarian only a century after.”, “Significantly, most British and French antislavery fervor in the 1860s was directed not at Spain and Portugal, which allowed slavery in their colonies, or at Brazil, with its millions of slaves. world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is pages, Rating: . ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “Around the time the Germans were slaughtering Hereros, the world also was largely ignoring America’s brutal counterguerrilla war in the Philippines, in which U.S. troops tortured prisoners, burned villages, killed some 20,000 rebels, and saw an estimated 200,000 more Filipinos die of war-related hunger or disease.” Prologue Quotes For Europeans, Africa remained the supplier of valuable raw materials—human bodies and elephant tusks. interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. The King Leopold’s Ghost Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “When Leopold wrote that the precise frontiers of the new state or states would be defined later, [German Chancellor] Bismarck said to an aide, "His Majesty displays the pretensions and naive selfishness of an Italian who considers that his charm and good looks will enable him to get away with anything.” Access Full Document. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “A parade of witnesses offered horrifying testimony. In 1908, the area was annexed by Belgium as a colony known as the Belgian Congo. Its discovery then had a strong influence on Braque, Matisse, and Picasso.” Plot Summary . Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous philosophy by which we live. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." Home; king leopold's ghost; King Leopold Ghost : Novel Summary:part 1:chapter 1-5 . 306 ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “In Berlin, there are no museums or monuments to the slaughtered Hereros, and in Paris and Lisbon no visible reminders of the rubber terror that slashed in half the populations of parts of French and Portuguese Africa. “Furthermore, unlike many other great predators of history, from Genghis Khan to the Spanish conquistadors, King Leopold II never saw a drop of blood spilled in anger. The King Leopold’s Ghost quotes below are all either spoken by William Sheppard or refer to William Sheppard. Print Word PDF. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, “As the years passed, new myths arose to explain the mysterious objects the strangers brought from the land of the dead. The Traders Are Kidnappingour People Quotes. Cubism was new only for Europeans, for it was partly inspired by specific pieces of African art, some of them from the Pende and Songye peoples, who live in the basin of the Kasai River, one of the Congo's major tributaries. ― Adam Hochschild, quote from King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild Content. King Leopold's Ghost (Downloadable Audiobook) : Hochschild, Adam : In the late 1890s, Edmund Dene Morel, a young British shipping company agent, noticed something strange about the cargoes of his company's ships as they arrived from and departed for the Congo, Leopold II's vast new African colony. The highlights BookQuoters ; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of us a quote a. Gone through the roof. 1908, the area was annexed by Belgium as a colony known as Belgian! 978-0-395-75924-0 isbn-13: 978-0-395-75924-0 isbn-13: 978-0-395-75924-0 isbn-13: 978-0-395-75924-0 isbn-13: 978-0-395-75924-0:... 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