Democratic Republic of Congo Books

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

Adam Hochschild

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Total reviews: 188 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

King Leopold of Belgium, writes historian Adam Hochschild in this grim history, did not much care for his native land or his subjects, all of which he dismissed as "small country, small people." Even so, he searched the globe to find a colony for Belgium, frantic that the scramble of other European powers for overseas dominions in Africa and Asia would leave nothing for himself or his people. When he eventually found a suitable location in what would become the Belgian Congo, later known as Zaire and now simply as Congo, Leopold set about establishing a rule of terror that would culminate in the deaths of 4 to 8 million indigenous people, "a death toll," Hochschild writes, "of Holocaust dimensions." Those who survived went to work mining ore or harvesting rubber, yielding a fortune for the Belgian king, who salted away billions of dollars in hidden bank accounts throughout the world. Hochschild's fine book of historical inquiry, which draws heavily on eyewitness accounts of the colonialists' savagery, brings this little-studied episode in European and African history into new light. --Gregory McNamee

The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality

Thomas Turner

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Rather sloggy 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality is written by veteran Congo scholar Thomas Turner. It is not a narrative of the wars. Rather, the book tries to do many things: the early chapters are wonderful at introducing and contextualizing the conflict, later it describes the belief of Ugandans that Congo is a place where you can steal cars, meet women, and make money, the ways Uganda/Rwanda have plundered Congo, the role of the international community and the elections that have been held since the war ended. The result is a book which is slightly clunky, two chapters of in-depth analysis on the impact of the war in the provinces of North and South Kivu I found a particular slog but unfortunately unenlightening. It is a useful book nonetheless.

Editorial Review:

This book, by a lifelong authority on the Congo, makes sense of the world’s least reported and least understood major war. Since 1996 successive waves of armed conflict in the Congo have left behind at least 3 million casualties, overwhelmingly civilian. Turner throws new light on partisan and economically self-interested military interventions by Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. And he cuts through the highly tendentious historical myths that have been used to make sense of the unfolding catastrophe both in the region and beyond. The book also indicates the changes required of the international community, neighboring African states and Congolese political leaders if this hugely resource-rich region of Central Africa is to build peace and economic security for its people.

The African Dream: The diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo

Ernesto "Che" Guevara

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was one of the greatest exemplars of the revolutionary 1960s, a man whose heroic adventures were essential to the success of the Cuban Revolution and whose legend fired the imaginations of a whole generation. In 1965, amid worldwide conjecture, Guevara left Cuba, where he was a minister in Fidel Castro's postrevolutionary government, and traveled incognito to the heart of Africa. People's hero Patrice Lumumba had recently been assassinated, and Guevara was to put his theories of guerrilla warfare to use helping the oppressed people of the Congo throw off the yoke of colonial imperialism. The first task was to assist the young Laurent Kabila in his struggle against Mobutu and Tshombe, the two key figures in the newly independent nation. For the first time, The African Dream collects Guevara's unabridged journals of the expedition. They are the record of the bitter failure of a political and ideological dream, and a telling complement to the subsequent rise of Kabila and his recent demise. Most of all, the diaries afford the reader a very personal insight into the thoughts and emotions of Che Guevara, the twentieth century's great revolutionary martyr.

The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

History written by a Congolese 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 11 people found this review helpful.

This book is great because it offers the best information you can find on the internal resistance against colonial rule, on the mobutu dictatorship and on the Conférence Nationale Souveraine (beginning of the 90s). The very extensive descriptions of the changing classes in the Congolese society are somewhat boring. And the book poorly describes what happens after 97.
Ntalaja's english is easy reading for non-native speakers like myself ;-)

Editorial Review:

As this book shows, the People of the Congo have suffered throughout the past century from a particularly brutal experience of colonial rule, and a series of post-independence political conflicts. But as this insightful political history of the Congolese democratic movement of the 20th century decisively makes clear, its people have not taken these multiple oppressions lying down. Instead, they have struggled both to establish democratic institutions at home and to free themselves from exploitations abroad.

The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa

Bill Berkeley

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Tribalism and loyalties 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I liked this book, more because it shed several spotlights on how several things happened that have contributed to past and present conditions in Africa. Much scorn should be rained down on several generations of leaders of the so called industrialized world for prepetuating the continued patronage of really bad people who seem to hold no regard for thier fellow man outside of thier clan or tribe. How divide and conquer is used repeatedly. When the cold war ended, Africa was suddenly abandoned as a front and more support for bad people was prepetuated. Five areas that continually recieve attention for good and bad, mostly bad are the key hotspots, we have to the northeast, Sudan and Somalia, though not much mention of the latter here, in the southwest; Liberia and all of the hate and discontent that a sucession of this leaning and that leaning despots created. In the centre, we have Rwanda, Zaire( the Congo) and Uganda and the very bottom, South Africa. Much of the cause for many of these turmoils seems to be a result of a half hearted attempt to extract the wealth from the country, and leave the mess for some one else to deal with, a general misunderstanding of history and the legacy of colonialism past and present.

Editorial Review:

Since 1983 journalist Bill Berkeley has traveled through Africa's most troubled lands-Rwanda, Liberia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire-seeking out the tyrants and military leaders who orchestrate seemingly intractable wars. Shattering the myth that ancient tribal hatred lies at the heart of the continent's troubles, Berkeley instead holds accountable the "Big Men" who came to power during this period, describing the very rational methods behind their apparent madness. A New Republic Book

The Last Expedition: Stanley's Mad Journey Through the Congo

Daniel Liebowitz, Charles Pearson

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Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

"Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?" 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Stanley's Mad Journey: The Last Expedition

Even by the standards of nineteenth- century Imperialism, Henry Morton Stanley was excessive. His career, detailed in "The Last Expedition: Stanley's Mad Journey through the Congo," encompasses the worst of colonialism: racism, elitism, and opportunism, among others.

It is ironic that Stanley's life would be forever linked with that of Livingstone, who he found and addressed with the immortal words: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
(Like: What other White Man would be in the middle of Darkest Africa?)
Stanley encouraged the popular perception of the Great White Hunter through his colorful, and self-serving, journalism for the tabloids of the day. He had no qualms in serving as Front Man for King Leopold of Belgium, who wanted to get on the African bandwagon with his own colony.

A European adventurer with the unlikely name of Mehemet Emin, who had adopted Arabic attire and manners, much like T.E. Lawrence, needed reinforcements, and it was agreed upon that Stanley would lead a rescue mission. Stanley developed a plan which, while it looked good on paper, was incredibly inefficient and downright foolhardy. His officers were the wrong men for the job: his equipment was inadequate; and his timing was wrong.

But the biggest problem was Stanley himself: arrogant, grandiose, disdainful of the Natives, and willful -he didn't have the right character traits for a leader. Illness, accident and murder claimed the lives of many of his men, yet he remained aloof and regal. It was a wonder than anyone survived the operation.
Like another reviewer, I read this book shortly after reading "The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey." It provided an interesting contrast in styles of leadership and character: Roosevelt saw his expedition as a test of his own mettle; Stanley (like some other American presidents, although not TR), was thinking how his Legacy would hold up. Not well.

The Last Expedition is well-researched, entertaining, and well written. (****)

Editorial Review:

Henry Morton Stanley undertook the greatest African expedition of the nineteenth century to rescue Emin Pasha, last lieutenant of the martyred General Gordon and governor of the southern Sudan. Emin had been cut off by an Islamic jihad to the north and was at the mercy of brutal slave traders. Instead of ten months, the trip took three years and cost the lives of thousands of people, as Stanley's column hacked its way across the last great, unexplored territory in Africa. Stanley's secret agenda was territorial expansion on the model of Leopold's Congo or the British East India Company, and what is revealed so vividly in the diaries of those who accompanied him is the dark underside of both the man and the colonial impulse. The expedition took whatever it wanted from the Africans, and when Africans were killed defending their possessions, they didn't even rate an entry in Stanley's journal.

Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone

Larry Devlin

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Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A master spy's memoir of playing the game in the most strategically influential country in 1960s Africa.

Larry Devlin arrived as the new chief of station for the CIA in the Congo five days after the country had declared its independence, the army had mutinied, and governmental authority had collapsed. As he crossed the Congo River in an almost empty ferry boat, all he could see were lines of people trying to travel the other way--out of the Congo. Within his first two weeks he found himself on the wrong end of a revolver as militiamen played Russian-roulette, Congo style, with him.

During his first year, the charismatic and reckless political leader, Patrice Lumumba, was murdered and Devlin was widely thought to have been entrusted with (he was) and to have carried out (he didn't) the assassination. Then he saved the life of Joseph Desire Mobutu, who carried out the military coup that presaged his own rise to political power. Devlin found himself at the heart of Africa, fighting for the future of perhaps the most strategically influential country on the continent, its borders shared with eight other nations. He met every significant political figure, from presidents to mercenaries, as he took the Cold War to one of the world's hottest zones. This is a classic political memoir from a master spy who lived in wildly dramatic times.

The History of Congo:

Ch. Didier Gondola

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This book begins with a survey of Congo's early history, when diverse peoples such as the Luba, the Kuba, and the Nilotic inhabited the area, and continues by tracing the country's history through the Belgian period of colonization and the dictatorships of Mobutu and Kabila. Biographical portraits present important figures in Congo's storied history. An annotated bibliography and chronology help make this the most current and accessible introduction to this fascinating, complex, and long-suffering nation. The Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, is located at the center of Africa. The country encompasses the entire Congo River Basin, the potential source of 13% of the world's hydroelectric power. The Congo River Basin also contains one-third of Africa's rainforests, countless species of trees, and more then 10,000 species of flowering plants. Congo contains extremely valuable deposits of diamonds and coltan, a metal used in high-tech machinery. Because of this abundance of natural resources, Congo has unfortunately been the site of colonial domination, repressive dictatorships, and internecine violence between rebel groups and neighboring countries.

Assassination of Lumumba

Ludo de Witte

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A Painful but educational reading for Congolese generations 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This book is an outstanding piece of work that reflects the author's intellectual honesty and his passion for the truth. A truth that has been hidden and distorted in so many ways, for so long. Ludo De Witte's detailed account of The Assassination of Lumumba finally makes a breakthrough. The book is both enlightening and disturbing but, above all, educational. While providing powerful and troubling data about this horrific event, it also helps to understand the facts from the context of the struggle against the neo-colonial order in which they occurred.

It is my hope that this well documented and careful study about this important period of Congolese history will serve as basic reference and become a classic textbook for educators and anyone interested in the long and complex history of the struggle for freedom, dignity and justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Editorial Review:

Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo, was at the center of his country's popular defiance towards the exploitation of its Belgian colonizer. When independence was finally won in 1960, his unscheduled speech at the official ceremony, which described Belgian rule as 'a humiliating slavery imposed by brute force,' received a standing ovation and made him a hero to millions. Within months he was arrested, tortured and executed. Employing an array of official sources as well as personal testimony, Ludo De Witte unravels the appalling mass of lies that have surrounded the murder. A network of complicity is revealed, ranging from the Belgian government across the United Nations to the CIA. Chilling official memos which detail 'liquidation' are analyzed alongside tales of the destruction of evidence, placing in stark contrast Lumumba's personal strength and his quest for African independence.

Imagining the Congo: The International Relations of Identity

Kevin C. Dunn

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Editorial Review:

Understanding the current civil war in Congo requires an examination of how the Congo's identity has been imagined over time. Imagining the Congo historicizes and contextualizes the constructions of the Congo's identity during four historical periods. Kevin Dunn explores "imaginings" of the Congo that have allowed the current state of affairs there to develop, and the broader conceptual question of how identity has become important in recent IR scholarship.